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44 



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NATURE AND CLAIMS 



OF 



YOUNG MEN'S 

Christian gradations. 



BY THE REV. THOMAS .SMYTH, D.D. 

CHARLESTON, S. C. 



" The glory op young men is their strength."— Prov. xx. 29. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
1857. 



THE 

NATURE AND CLAIMS 

OF 

YOUNG MEN'S 

Christian Qmtfatim. 

BY THE KEV. THOMAS SMYTH, D.D. 

. CHARLESTON, S. C. 



" The glory of young men is their strength."— Prov. xx. 29. 




x^C2 

PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
1857. 



y 



& 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 

Rev. THOMAS SMYTH, D.D. 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 

STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. 
PHILADELPHIA. 



DEDICATED, 



WITH HEARTFELT CONGRATULATIONS FOR THEIR PAST 
ACHIEVEMENTS, 



WITH EARNEST HOPES, EXPECTATIONS, AND PRAYERS FOR THEIR 
FUTURE PROSPERITY AND PROGRESS, 

TO THE 

fftrang fj&tt's Cjjtisftm ^smmtlan 

IN THE UNITED STATES 

AND THROUGHOUT THE CHRISTIAN WORLD; 

AND, PERSONALLY, TO MY GREATLY ESTEEMED FRIEND, 

ROBERT C. GILCHRIST, 

u. s. c. 

AND 

|)r*8ibjent of % JJotrng Pen's CJprtetian gissoriation 

OF CHARLESTON, S. C 



How precious a thing is youthful energy, if only it could be preserved 
entirely englobed, as it were, within the bosom of the young adventurer, 
till he can come and offer it forth a sacred emanation on yonder temple 
of truth and virtue. But, alas! all along as he goes towards it he ad- 
vances through an avenue formed by a long line of tempters and de- 
mons on each side, all prompt to touch him with their conductors and 
draw the divine electric element, with which he is charged, away. 

John Foster. 

The way of every man is declarative of the end of every man. 

Cecil. 

Youthful excesses are drafts on manhood and old age, most generally 
finding them bankrupt and beggars or not finding them at all. 

Voices of Nature. 

Habits of youthful piety are drafts on God, payable at sight, for the 
support and comfort of manhood, old age, death, and immortality. 

Iuid 

Sinful habits are grave-clothes of souls, by which they are bound by 
Satan for an everlasting burial. Ibid. 

Centre-pieces of wood are put by builders under an arch of stone, 
while it is in the process of construction, till the keystone is put in, 
Just such is the use Satan makes of pleasures to construct evil habits 
upon: the pleasure lasts perhaps until the habits are fully formed, but, 
that done, the structure may stand eternal ; the pleasures are sent for 
firewood, and the hell begins in this life. Coleridge 

Though thy way be dark and long, 
Think of them that now on high 
Have attain'd the victory. 
In a moment 'twill be past, 
And the endless die be cast 
In that place where time is not, 
Thoughts that are on earth forgot 
Take their place and ever dwell, 
Set in calm unspeakable, 
And enshrined in silence stay 
to abide the dreadful day. 



PREFATORY REMARKS. 



The substance of the following volume was prepared 
at the instance of the Young Men's Christian Association 
of Charleston, S. C, and was delivered as one of a course 
of lectures during the past year. As some things in its 
application refer to that city, it is deemed best to retain 
their original form, both for usefulness there and as an 
illustration of the analogous and proportionate adaptation 
of such associations to other cities and communities. 

The substance of the discourse, however, was devoted 
to an exhibition of the nature and claims of such asso- 
ciations in general, and may, it is hoped, and as the 
author has been encouraged to believe, be useful for dis- 
tribution, as an introduction to a true knowledge of 
their character and importance, — as an encouragement to 
young men who are not, as well as those who are, pro- 
fessors of religion, to become associated with them, — and 
also as a portraiture of what these associations ought to 
be, what by the blessing of God they may be, and what in 
order to fulfil their perfect work and ministry of love they 
must be. 



6 PREFATORY REMARKS. 



And may that divine Saviour from whose glorious gospel 
these associations derive their life make this and every 
other means employed for their advancement powerful, 
through His Holy Spirit, to the salvation and sanctification 
of many souls ! Then shall these thoughts 

However poor portray'd, set forth to view 
With feeble eloquence, be such as may- 
Arrest some glance, some thought, which, entering in 
The door of the life-kindling, shaping soul, 
May haply there take root in tender soil, 
In youth's soft heart plant the immortal shoot 
Of heaven-born virtue, which shall bear him fruit, 
And bind his locks with amaranthine wreath; 
May to the fount of action entrance find, 
That streams which issue thence may bear the tinge 
Of hope and dread expectance of the Judge 
With echoing blast of the archangel's trump. 
Reader and writer on that morn must meet: 
Thrice happy, could this theme arouse but one, 
That, when all hearts are open'd, then this mark — 
(On which men's fate is made to hang alone) — 
Whether he has loved God or has loved self, 
Has lived to Christ, or while he lived was dead, — 
May on his soul be found by God impress'd 
This is the mirror wherein souls are seen ; 
This is the Book. On this the scale depends. 
This is announced to the eternal years, 
And such alone pass to the rest of God. 



gomtg Huns 



In addressing you, my young friends, I will, 
without preface, endeavour to present the nature 
and claims of Young Men's Christian Associations. 

In doing so, the very first point to which atten- 
tion shall be directed is the principle of association 
on which these Societies are based. 

The principle of association holds a conspicuous 
place among the most potent forces that are now 
acting upon the world, — silent, invisible, and unpre- 
tending in its working, and yet powerful in its 
results beyond all other moral agencies. This has 
become proverbial. " Union is strength," and 
" United we conquer, while divided we fall," are 
now familiar applications to every interest of hu- 
manity of our Saviour's aphorism that a house 
divided against itself cannot stand, and of those 
other scriptural proverbs that "in the multitude of 

7 



YOUNG MENS 



counsellors there is safety," and that in them also 
" purposes are established." 

The foundations on which this principle of associa- 
tion is based are deep-laid in the most essential 
powers and sympathies of our nature. It takes 
hold of them all, and combines them all in one con- 
centrated, steady, and progressive force. 

Association becomes wisdom, by the united coun- 
sels of the multitude it brings together. 

Association is also power; for this wisdom is 
power, — power to ascertain the true character and 
dimensions of the evil to be overcome or the good 
to be secured and the best time and manner in which 
that evil is to be assailed, and thus bring together 
all the resources of such combined energy that 
can be brought to bear upon the designed end. 
Ants are very insignificant creatures; but when 
associated together they can build cities, fill them 
with well-stored granaries, and wage resistless war- 
fare against their enemies. A bee is very tiny, 
and, individually, very powerless; but bees when 
associated in swarms are more than a match for 
the fiercest animal, and for man himself. A single 
wolf may well be dreaded ; but a full pack of hungry 
wolves must blanch with fear the stoutest heart, 
even though clad in mail and armed cap-a-pie. 
And thus also it is that, while one sinner can destroy 
much good, and one spiritual enemy is to be feared, 
it is when combined in a godless confederacy, or 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 9 



into a well-disciplined host, that virtue and patriot- 
ism may be filled with well-grounded alarm and 
aroused to that conflict which finds in union strength, 
and in patriotic valour, victory. 

Association therefore becomes wisdom and power 
for evil or for good in proportion as it is the combi- 
nation of the wisdom and power, the virtue or the 
vice, of many. And while in itself it is only an 
abstract principle, having no vitality or will, it be- 
comes endued with marvellous potency, and generates 
even the principle of life. Life depends not upon 
the existence of any individual particles or even of or- 
ganic structures, but upon a body in which many such 
are organically united and fitly joined together by 
that which every joint supplieth, and the whole ani- 
mated and controlled by one living spirit. And so 
it is not in any single separate member of a class of 
people that their social, civil, political, moral, or reli- 
gious life is found, but in the association of that class 
in some form of organized and well-conducted union. 
Osiris, whatever we make this mythological cha- 
racter to represent, is dead and inoperative so long 
as his members lie scattered over the world, and 
becomes instinct with life and power only when 
these disjecta membra are reconstructed in one 
living body. A body may be organically perfect in 
every limb, joint, and muscle. The lungs may 
play and the heart beat. The eyes may see and 
the ear hear, and the hand grasp and the feet move. 



10 YOUNG MEN'S 



And, while the mouth can receive and the stomach 
digest nourishing food, that body may live and move 
and have being. And yet it may be a paralyzed, 
feeble, halting, and imbecile body, incapable of any 
active, strenuous, energetic exertion, of any high, 
patriotic, or benevolent enterprise. But let those 
various organs receive the vitalizing, sustaining co- 
operation of all the myriad invisible nerves; let 
these, however silently and involuntarily, contribute 
each in their own minute locality their proportion 
of strength; and, by that association of parts and 
powers, a body otherwise feeble and inoperative 
becomes strong, and powerful, and capable of indo- 
mitable energy. 

The power of any body, therefore, lies not in the 
combination of organs all equally strong, vigorous, 
and important. Some are and must be such. Some 
are and must be prominent : — the eye to see, the 
tongue to speak, the head to plan, the hands to 
execute, and the feet to convey and sustain. But 
these are not on this account more essential, though 
more observed and honoured. The lungs which 
play, the heart which beats, the nerves which feel and 
receive and give quick and lightning sensibility, are 
equally essential. And, in like manner, an association 
of men, to be strong, must combine rich and poor, 
humble and great, learned and ignorant, wise and 
simple, thinkers, labourers, soldiers to fight, sappers 
and miners to prepare the way and remove obsta- 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 11 



cles, those that "wait beside the stuff" and manage 
the internal concerns, and the poor wise man 
whose counsel on an emergency may save the city. 

Thy servants militant below 

Have each, Lord, their post; 
As thou appoint'st who best dost know 

The soldiers of thine host : 
Some in the van thou call'st to do 

And the day's heat to share; 
And in the rearward not a few 

Thou only bidd'st to bear. 

Blessed and most gracious encouragement to all — 
in all times, ages, circumstances, and with whatever 
of strength, talent, means, or influence — to associate 
together in the Lord's service, under the Master's 
eye, and with the Master's promise that if there be 
only a willing mind it is accepted, " not according to 
what a man hath not, but according to what he 
hath," and to what he purposeth in his heart. 

By no new path, untried before, • 

Thy servants dost Thou lead; 
The selfsame promise as of yore 

Supports the selfsame need : 
The faith for which thy saints endured 

The dungeon or the stake, 
That very faith, with hearts assured, 

Upon our lips we take. 

Though scatter'd widely left and right, 

And sent to various posts, 
One is the battle that we fight 

Beneath one Lord of hosts. 



12 YOUNG MEN'S 



We know not, we shall never know, 

Our fellow-labourers here ; 
But they that strive one strife below 

Shall in one joy appear. 

They need, Lord, thy special grace 

That fight in this world's view, 
But in the sick-room face to face 

Is Satan vanquished too : 
Both need the same protecting hand 

To keep them undenled, 
And both shall in Thy presence stand, — 

The martyr and thy child ! 

But association not only concentrates knowledge, 
accumulates power, and creates social life; it 
awakens sympathy. As face answereth to face, so 
does the heart of man to man. It is instinct with 
sympathy. It responds with electric force to every 
impulse from kindred souls. Individually, man 
holds his opinions timidly, and ventures to act upon 
them cautiously and with doubting unbelief. But 
when they are embodied in a constitution, adopted 
by others, and represented in living acts, they re- 
ceive a strength which is ever augmented by the 
play of sympathy in a community of associated 
efforts. Common principles, interests, employments, ' 
and enjoyments, are its very life-blood and im- 
part at once vitality, energy, and sympathy to any 
society. 

Association is, on all these accounts, the fountain 
of pleasure. It draws together. It inspires con- 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 13 



fidence. It gives play to all the social tendencies 
of our nature. It entices a man out of his own soli- 
tary egotism, vanity, and pride; irradiates his gloom; 
sweetens his bitterness; cheers his solitude; dries 
his tears ; inspires hope ; kindles ambition and 
rivalry to excel ; and enlarges, ennobles, and elevates 
by the full activity it provides for all the powers both 
of mind and body. 

But, to pass on from this very fruitful topic, I 
would only further remark that association secures 

PERMANENCE, STABILITY, and GROWTH. Life in 

one may wane, while it waxes strong in another. 
Faith in one may be weak, while in another it is 
vigorous. Hope may shine tremblingly in one, and 
yet burn brightly in his neighbour. Health may 
fail in some, and yet increase and strengthen in the 
rest. Interest in the common object may lose its 
power over some, while others become ignited and 
rekindle the expiring fire. And thus, while exist- 
ing members may perish, yet this takes place so 
gradually that the association may remain un- 
changed, or even strengthen and increase 

ALL ASSOCIATION POWERFUL — CHRISTIAN ASSO^ 
CIATION GLORIOUS. 

As an association, therefore, we cannot but 
regard this society as a body which commands our 
most lively and earnest attention to its principles 



14 YOUNG MEN'S 



and ends. As an association, it is an embodiment 
of knowledge, power, life, sympathy, enjoyment, 
and permanent and progressive stability. But 
whether it is such for good or evil depends upon its 
principles and ends. An association is a living, 
organized, gigantic power. But, if its associating 
principles are evil, it will only resemble the accumu- 
lated mass of snowy particles which congeal upon 
the mountain's brow until they constitute the 
avalanche, the fall of whose illimitable mass carries 
resistless destruction to the plains beneath. But 
if, on the other hand, its cohering principles are 
benign, such an association resembles the accu- 
mulation of those same vaporous particles in the 
clouds of heaven, which are borne along by the 
winds until they pour down upon every dry and 
thirsty field the refreshing, fertilizing rain. 

What importance, therefore, is attached to this 
society by the fact that it is a Christian associa- 
tion, — an association based upon Christian truth; 
animated by Christian principle; actuated by Chris- 
tian motives; breathing only the atmosphere of Chris- 
tian love; inspired by Christian fellowship, sympathy, 
and experience ; guided and sustained by Christian 
life ; looking for its wisdom and strength to heavenly 
teaching and divine power ; cementing its bonds by 
mutual prayer, intercourse, and encouragement; and 
aiming only at the Christian and God-like ends of 
mutual instruction, improvement, usefulness, health, 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 15 



happiness, and prosperity, and all these for the body 
as well as for the soul, for this world as well as the 
world to come, for eternity as well as time ! 

What sublimity and glory are found in the con- 
templation of such an association ! How does it- 
tower above all others outside of the church, like 
David among his brethren, or Mount Zion among 
the other hills of the Holy Land, or the church of 
God among all other associations existing, or capable 
of existence ; among men ! 

THE PRINCIPLE OF ASSOCIATION ORIGINATED BY 
CHRISTIANITY. 

This leads me to observe that the principle 
of association, like every other good and perfect 
gift, is from above, and is the direct result of that 
very Christianity which constitutes the avowed 
basis of this society. Though apparently so obvious 
and simple, and so capable of universal application, 
nevertheless, the principle of association was alto- 
gether unknown in the ancient world and among 
the most civilized and refined nations. Men were 
indeed always banded together by the force of 
circumstances, by sudden and temporary impulse, 
by stern necessity, or by the overmastering power 
of despotism. But anterior to Christianity men 
had no principle to combine them together into 
voluntary and permanent bodies, and no common 



16 YOUNG MEN'S 



end to sustain and animate their hopes. The very 
reverse was the object aimed at by every govern- 
ment, and by every individual. Separation, segre- 
gation, and cautious isolation were necessary alike 
to personal security and to undisturbed public 
authority. 

" They forged the links of martial law, that bind, 
Enslave, imbrute, and mechanize the mind." 

Combinations were conspiracies, or the explosions 
of a volcano, — the terrific ministry of inward fires, 
which after their devastating outburst soon con- 
gealed, and left the world neither wiser, nor better, 
nor disenthralled. The will of one or of a few 
men, or the caprice of tumultuous passion and 
wild cabal, determined the fate and fortune of mil- 
lions. 

The principle of association had its origin in 
Christianity and its first exemplification in Christian 
churches. Here first the world saw men volunta- 
rily combining together upon the basis of truths 
individually received, — under rules and forms pub- 
licly acknowledged, — under officers chosen from 
among themselves, — and for the accomplishment of 
ends common to them all and yet not bearing upon 
the selfish interests of any. 

Here first was exemplified that divine spirit of 
Christian love, — 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 17 



"That fire which in each breast burns all beside, 
All that is earthly, all of selfish love, 
Projects of low-brow' d indolence and pride, — 
Until they feel in Christ they live and move 
And breathe regenerate life of those above." 

Thus promulgated and developed, the world has 
learned the unspeakable value of this principle, and 
has found in it the lever for overthrowing the 
mightiest dynasties, and for accomplishing the 
greatest revolutions in political and scientific 
theories ; so that association is now the very first 
principle in all movements for social, civil, or moral 
reform. 

CHRISTIANITY PROVIDES FOR CHRISTIAN, AS WELL 
AS ECCLESIASTICAL, ASSOCIATIONS. 

The time, we hope, has also come, when, under the 
inspiration of Christian truth, Christian principle, 
and Christian motives, this divinely-originated 
principle of association will be employed in combin- 
ing together the talent, influence, piety, and energy 
of all who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, both theirs and ours, for the advancement 
of the cause of Christ, the promotion of each other's 
welfare, and the best interests of their fellow-men. 

God forbid that I should say aught to dim the 
lustre or cloud the glory of the churches of Christ ! 

" There my best friends, my kindred, dwell; 
There God my Saviour reigns." 
2* 



18 YOUNG MEN'S 



In a Christian church I was myself born, nurtured, 
and fed. With it are associated my earliest aspira- 
tions, my warmest thoughts, my purest joys, my most 
sincere and substantial pleasures here on earth, and my 
clearest views and most satisfying earnests of heaven. 
The heart needs a resting-place such as the world, 
with all its paradises, and home, with all its delights, 
cannot give; and it finds this in the church. The 
soul needs a temple where it may retire, apart from 
all human teachers and all the vain j anglings and dis- 
cordant voices of man's philosophy, and, sitting at 
the feet of Jesus, have its best principles strength- 
ened, its loftiest aspirations encouraged, its sublime 
instincts realized, and its unutterable and unquench- 
able longings satisfied; and it finds this in the 
church. The soul needs also a sanctuary where it 
may retreat from every stormy wind that blows and 
from every rude and heart-lacerating grief; and, as 
it sits under the droppings of the sanctuary with 
great delight and hides itself there under the sha- 
dow of the all-protecting wings until every calamity 
is overpassed, it finds this refuge in the church. 
The church is the fold where the " foot-sore tra- 
veller," weary and heavy laden, finds rest, and the 
social spiritual home- — 

" So like a little heaven below" — 

where the sad and solitary and broken-hearted, who 
go mourning amid the desert crowds of cities, find 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 19 



sympathy and solace and a welcome greeting 
among the brotherhood of Christ, — 

" No more a stranger or a guest, 
But like a child at home." 

Christianity has certainly not yet developed all its 
energy as the light, the leaven, and the salt of the 
earth. As the power of God not only for the salva- 
tion but also for the regeneration of the world, its 
force is still to a great extent latent, because un- 
applied. Like some mighty engine which gives 
motion to a thousand wheels for the perfection of 
some useful products of manufacture, but which is 
capable of accomplishing indirectly still greater re- 
sults, so is it with Christianity. Directly and pri- 
marily, it is designed to impart vitality and perma- 
nent activity to Christian churches, of which its 
truth is both the pillar and the ground. To these 
pertain the promises, provisions, ordinances, and 
preaching of the gospel,---the grand instrumentality 
for the world's conversion unto God; and churches 
therefore are ordinarily the birthplace of souls and 
the wells of salvation. 

But, in addition to this primary and organic de- 
velopment, Christianity is capable of, and is designed 
to accomplish, manifold beneficial results. It does 
not bring forth and train up and teach all things 
whatsoever Christ has commanded, to its children, 
that, when nurtured in the admonition of the Lord 



20 YOUNG MEN'S 



and grown to the stature of men in Christ Jesus, 
they may keep at home beside their mother's lap, 
dandled upon the knee of indulgence, fondled in 
the bosom of her soothing affection, feasted on the 
joy her promises afford, and luxuriating in the 
beauties of holiness. Oh no ! she trains their hands 
to war, to labour, and to endure hardness as good 
soldiers of Jesus Christ. Girding up their loins and 
pointing to the hosts assembled for battle — 

What dread spectators watch their destined way ! 
How 'mid assembled worlds they stand alone ! 
"Come on/' she cries; "list in the heavenly war, 
With shield of faith and with the Spirit's sword, 
Strong in the mail of God's unfailing word — 
The Urim and the Thummim of the Lord." 

She sends them also into her vineyard to work. 
She leads them forth to the out-lying field, which is 
the world ; and, as the eagle stirreth up her nest and 
sendeth forth her new-fledged young that they may 
circle with her in her heavenward flight, so does the 
church send forth her sons into the field of duty and 
of conflict, that they may fight manfully the good 
fight of faith, work the work of God, and learn 

How much by prayer one fervent soul may throw 
Into the scale where kingdoms now are weigh'd. 

It is therefore the very object of the education 
imparted by Christian churches to make their children 
wise to win souls for Christ ; to save the perishing 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 21 



from death; to multiply the trophies of redeeming 
love; to bring in many outcast wanderers to their 
Father's house; to scatter wide around them the 
seeds of life immortal ; and thus to prove that, while 
her end is salvation and her destination eternity, 
Christianity is the life and power of all charity, 
philanthropy, patriotism, morality, order, and of what- 
soever things are just, true, pure, honest, lovely, and 
of good report, — if there be any virtue and if there 
be any praise among men ; to prove that Christianity 
is, in short, the true catholikon for rent and torn hu- 
manity, — a law of attraction operating in the very 
highest region of humanity, the region of thought 
and conviction, — and " a prophecy that the Babel- 
isms of men shall yet be healed by the consummated 
act of which the day of Pentecost was but the be- 
ginning and the pledge." 

To this invisible and silent operation of Chris- 
tianity in its indirect influences and beyond its eccle- 
siastical limits, will be attributed without contro- 
versy the origin and progress of modern civilization; 
the triumph of law, order, and liberty, which are 
its natural offspring; the sense of personal re- 
sponsibility, and its collateral rights; the elevation 
of morals ; the power of conscience in creating con- 
scientiousness, and, therefore, confidence; and that 
ever-widening commerce which is based upon the 
pre-existence of these fruits of the tree of life, and 
which is so opening up all parts of the world rapidly 



22 young men's 



and so indissolubly binding them together in one 
vast community, — 

Many, yet one, in union manifold. 

To the Christian, therefore, the world is a field of 
duty, life a sacrifice to duty, his fellow-men the 
objects of his love and pity which duty does not 
less require than acts of justice and of honesty: — 

For around, in silence dread, 

All unseen above his head 

Like an amphitheatre, 

Stand the angelic inmates there, 

Watching how man does his part. 

There are writ the deeds of men, 

With a diamond-pointed pen, 

On a plate of adamant 

For eternity to chant. 

Syllabled in courts above, 

They are writ, and they shall last, 

Dipp'd in colours of the heart 

That none from his own doom may part. 

Such is the educated, intelligent, heaven-directed 
Christian : — 

Holiness unto the Lord 

Marks his staff, his scrip, his board, 

Harp and spade, and book and sword, — 

All the royal priesthood use. 

Faith through all doth worth infuse; 

Giving even immortal worth 

To the lowliest tasks of earth, 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 23 



So that, lit by holy love, 
Lustrous as the stars above, 
Each with its own colour dight 
Is replete with living light. 

Animated by such a spirit, the Christian cannot 
live alone, or for himself alone. He is borne to- 
wards heaven on the wings of zeal. His very 
prayers come back to him laden with thoughts of 
love, and he is thus led to associate himself with all 
who, like him, are eager to devote themselves to the 
zealous prosecution of every good work. 

Christianity therefore provides in itself — in the 
very spirit it infuses and the principle of association 
it embodies — for the union of all its followers, not 
only in churches, but in all things practical, evan- 
gelical, and experimental, wherein, notwithstanding 
their ecclesiastical differences, they are " agreed, and 
in advancing which they are able to walk by the 
same rule, to mind the same things, and to be zeal- 
ously affected, striving together for the furtherance 
of the gospel, and provoking one another to love 
and zeal and good works." 

The existence of various churches leads to mani- 
fold good results, and is, no doubt, an intended adap- 
tation to the present weak and imperfect condition 
of even the holiest Christians. The evils incident to 
such different churches are, however, very great, 
and constitute a very serious hinderance to the pro- 
gress of the truth. It may therefore be well ex- 



24 YOUNG men's 



pected that some provision has been made for the 
accomplishment of the incalculable good, and for the 
avoidance of the serious evils of so many separate 
tribes, with their selfish jealousies, in the one Israel 
of God. Now, this, we think, is found in the prin- 
ciple of association combining together Christians of 
every evangelical name, for the united prosecution 
of labours of love, — a fact powerful enough to 
answer all the objections of captious and sneering 
infidelity, — the spontaneous avowal that all the dis- 
ciples of the Great Teacher are servants of the " one 
Lord," and animated by " one Spirit." 

For what else did the divine love and wisdom 
of God reveal and exemplify this powerful prin- 
ciple ? Not surely to be dormant. Not to putrefy 
like corrupted air imprisoned in some pent-up well, 
there to breed the morbific elements of sectarian 
jealousy and bigotry,, of malice, hatred, and all un- 
charitableness. Not to be caught up and imbibed 
by the world without and appropriated to its own 
temporal and transient interests. Nor was this 
principle of association revealed that in the hands 
of God's enemies it might confederate together the 
! >owers of earth and hell against the church and her 
sacred oracles and ordinances. No ! This principle 
was given, that, like the vital air we breathe and 
the balmy waters by which we exist, it might find 
its vitality, power, and purity preserved and multi- 
plied by free and loving expansion, — by an illimit- 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 25 



able diffusion permeating every lane and byway, 
every field and garden, giving and receiving, blessing 
and being blessed, as it goes ; — and that it might 
combine together in one atmosphere of holy love, 
in one swelling tide of Christian activity, all the 
separate particles of divine life. 

Love is like the ocean, — 

Ever fresh and strong ; 
Birth and life and motion, 

Speed and strength and song, 
With which, the world surrounding, 

It keeps it green and young. 

Yes ! love is ever flowing, 

Flowing ever down, 
And through all lands going 

From the heavenly throne* 

What a Satanic perversion of this principle of as- 
sociation, then, has led Christians hitherto to run down 
Christianity into exclusive sects, to erect around 
them impassable walls, and to employ so much of their 
talent and ingenuity in perpetuating old rents and 
in multiplying new ones ! 

Christians have too long and vainly endeavoured 
to secure perfect unity in all things believed, — in both 
the credenda and the agenda, the belief and the prac- 
tice of Christianity,— and to make this the basis of 
unity, communion, and love. It is now time to 
allow Christian love to exercise its irrepressible 
desire to embrace as brethren in Christ Jesus all 



26 young men's 



who give evidence of haying within them in living 
efficacy the truth as it is in Jesus. This will gene- 
rate not an ecclesiastical union merely, but what 
is still more heavenly, a personal and divine union, — 
personal between believer and believer of every 
name, — and divine between all believers and Christ 
their Head. This also will originate and increase 
Christian zeal. For, as the heat of the earth is pro- 
duced not so much by the direct rays of the sun 
shining upon it or from its relation to that body, as 
by the refraction and reflection of heat imparted, so 
it is not merely by the direct influences of Christ 
upon the heart that Christian zeal is enkindled, but 
still more by that zeal reflected and refracted in 
the atmosphere of love by Christ's peculiar people 
made by His Spirit zealous for good works. 

Indeed, analogy may lead us to suggest — what the 
word of God authorizes us to believe — that this wide 
sphere of Christian development is essential to the 
order and harmony of churches themselves. There 
is an analogy between the Christian system and our 
planetary system. In both we find numerous inde- 
pendent bodies, separate and complete in their own 
organization and revolving upon their own axes 
and within their own proper sphere, and, by the 
necessary laws of their planetary or ecclesiastical 
existence, giving light within that sphere. But in 
both also we are led to the contemplation, as neces- 
sary to the perfection of the system, of a still wider 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 21 



sphere, in which all these revolving bodies are at- 
tracted and preserved in their order and harmony, 
by one great central body around which the;y 
move, — 

Forever singing, as they shine, 
The hand that made us is divine. 

Glorious and sublime conception! Oh the depth 
and height of the wisdom and power of Christ the 
Sun of righteousness! the great central luminary 
of the spiritual universe ! who binds together in one 
divine system by the one law of love, all his churches 
and all his children on earth and in heaven in 
time and throughout eternity, in the unity of the 
faith, and of the knowledge and of the love of the 
Son of God ! 

The children of this world have been wiser in their 
generation. They have employed this principle of 
association in the cause of political reform, of scien- 
tific discovery, of national regeneration, and of infidel 
and atheistic revolution; and with what transcen- 
dent, irresistible, and invariable results ! And why? 
Because they applied it to some end to be gained, 
and not to some theory or doctrine to be expounded; 
to some work to be performed too vast for any 
one man or for any single society among men to 
achieve, but which, by a division of labour, and a 
concentration and a perseverance by successive la- 
bourers through successive years, might certainly 
be accomplished 



28 young men's 



So also must Christians act. Leaving every man 
to associate himself with the church of his conscien- 
tious preference, and as his primary and most import- 
ant duty to consecrate his time, influence, and means 
so as to make that church all that a church ought to 
be, — this principle of association calls upon Christians 
to combine together in Christian institutions, socie- 
ties, and associations, not to take up the doctrines of 
Christianity, but, on the already-established basis of 
these doctrines, to take up and accomplish the work 
of Christianity, the great practical work of Christian 
charity, — the carrying of the gospel to every man and 
to every man's home and business and bosom, and, 
with the gospel, together with that peace and good- 
will, that love and help and consolation, which are 
its necessary manifestations, its life-giving fruits. 

This, then, is the field opened up to Christian 
young men, and to which these associations lead 
them forth. The great idea has been conceived. 
It has taken root. It has sprung up unheeded and 
without observation. It has drunk in celestial air. 
It has been nourished by the dews of prayer — 

Unseen, unknown, shrouded with many a care, 
And scarce discernible to fleshly eye. 

But it has shot up a goodly tree. Its branches now 
extend from sea to sea and from shore to shore. 
Its leaves are already for the healing of many 
nations ; — 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 29 



And soon, released, its stature fills the sky 
And soars the child of immortality. 

In these associations we have the true Evangelical 
Alliance, — an alliance which, leaving all doctrinal, 
ecclesiastical, and political questions, consecrates 
itself to the one blessed aim of combining, elevating, 
and sanctifying young men; — for the one great end 
of gathering in the outcast, of being a friend to the 
friendless, a home to the homeless, and a blessing 
to all. 

On this to fix the heart and eyes 

Will heal the sores of controversial strife, 

Strengthen our wills, our motives purify, 

Humble our hearts, make single-eyed to see 

And single-hearted to embrace the truth, 

And to behold the pregnant thunder-cloud 

Bound with the rainbow which surrounds the Judge, 

Which bids God's children hasten 'neath the roof 

Of God's own sheltering house, and there await 

His coming on with tender offices, 

Each emulous his brother to befriend, 

Each to forget himself. Such have no eai 

For controversial triflings and debate, — 

Naught that responds within to party strife. 

To Christ's loved church, by endless discord riven, 

Such love alone her union can restore, 

And gain the blessings to that union given. 

THE GLORY OF MAN, AND OF YOUNG MEN 
SPECIALLY. 

As a Christian association, therefore, this 
society presents to us the combination of wisdom, 



^ 



30 YOUNG MEN'S 



power, sympathy, and stability, under the guidance 
of heavenly truth, divine principle, and God-like 
love, for the holiest ends. 

But its claims to our grateful consideration, high 
approval, hopeful expectation, and liberal assistance, 
are enhanced by its remaining feature, — namely, a 
Christian Association of Young Men. 

" The glory of young men is their strength." 
Man, in every stage of his existence, is a glorious 
being. He was made in the image of God. 

God gave to hira to live 'mong living men, 

And set eternity around his birth, 

E'en as the circling sky surrounds the earth. 

He was created but a little lower than the angels. 
He was exalted to the dignity of being God's re- 
presentative, interpreter, and governor in the earth, 
— to serve him, to honour him, to glorify and enjoy 
him, here and in heaven, now, henceforth, and for- 
ever. To this high calling man's nature was 
adapted. In this man found his happiness. And to 
this inward disposition and character, and this 
outward activity and service, the gospel is designed 
to restore man. 

As man is therefore a glorious being, so every 
capacity of man and every period of his life have 
their peculiar glory. As compared with other ani- 
mals, man cannot, it is true, glory in his inherent 
physical strength, since in this he is far inferior. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 31 



But, in the comparison of man with man in the 
different stages of life, youth is characterized by 
the development of man's greatest strength, energy, 
and activity. 

The glory of CHILDHOOD is that docility by which 
it is trained and matured for future usefulness, and 
that artless simplicity and conscious weakness which 
lead it to seek in others its wisdom and its strength. 

Within the arms of the great Lord of love, 

As in the teacher's seat, thou gentle child ! 

We see thee, all our wisdom to reprove, — 

That we may learn of thee, thou wisest styled j 

Learn virgin innocence, learn mercy mild, 

Unlearn ambition, unlearn carefulness. 

Oh life where state of angels is fulfilled, 

And saints who little have and need still less ! 

A state which nothing hath, yet all things doth possess ! 

The hoary head, on the other hand, is a crown 
of glory when it is found in the way of righteous- 
ness, not weary in well-doing, but still bringing 
forth fruit unto God, and, by its well-stored wisdom 
and experience, bearing testimony for the truth and 
comfort of a life of piety. 

And who is yonder man ? 

Himself a fleeting span, 
His shadow lengthening as the sun goes down, 
While growing sorrow marks him for her own ,* 

But o'er his head a golden crown 

The parting sun hath thrown. 



32 YOUNG men's 



His worldly wealth on earth forsaking, 
Wing'd sides he finds, and light-winged feet, 
And on his way his comrades is overtaking, 
While Mercy now descends, her pilgrim true to meet, 
And lead him, hand in hand, to her enduring seat. 
Man seems to climb a mountain's side, 
And, ever as he mounts, to leave behind 
Green spots and flowers, 
And shade of verdant bowers. 

Bidding adieu to golden prime, 

He flings aside to envious time 
The richer thoughts that were to hope allied, 
From barren to more barren still to climb. 
Then, as he upward mounts, upon the wind 
No more he hears the streamlet's melodies, 
And childhood's freshness on his spirit dies. 
But, now that he hath gain'd the height, 
He seems to walk upon the glorious skies. 
The sun that sets upon the seas beyond 
Flings back the radiance of his golden wand, 
And clothes him with a new, celestial light. 
Anon he seems more large than man's estate, — 
An angel seen on heaven's bright burnish'd gate. 

In like manner, youth is glorious when, in its 
dewy freshness, its whole energy of body, soul, and 
spirit is consecrated to God, sanctified by his truth, 
devoted to his service, bearing the heat and burden 
of the day, and thus growing up into the stature of 
perfect men in Christ Jesus. 

" Light are their steps who in life's earliest dawn 
The mountain-tops of heavenly life aseend, 
Brushing the dew-drops from the spangled lawn, 
Nor ever from the straighter path descend, 
Fixing their eyes upon their journey's end. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 



Ere sin has wither'd up their morning bloom, 
While streaks of purple morn their cheeks illume, 
And on the head still sparkles heavenly dew, — 
To see that dew like incense rise to heaven, 
It is a precious sight, which angels view 
In trembling joy and hope 5 immortal love 
Hangs o'er it, watching every opening hue. 
Plant, then, in youth's soft heart, the immortal shoots 
Of heaven-born virtue ; it shall bear thee fruit 
And bind thy locks with amaranthine wreaths." 

GREAT MEN HAVE PERFORMED THEIR GREAT 
ACTIONS WHILE YOUNG. 

The strength and energy of youth have been 
characteristic of the greatest warriors, statesmen, 
orators, musicians, and poets of the world. Few 
of these have seen old age. Genius almost invari- 
ably covers itself with flowers and sheds around its 
fragrance in the spring and summer of life, though 
there have been a few instances in which it has 
ripened its fruit in the golden harvest of a bright 
autumnal sky. The same is true of the philan- 
thropists, the benefactors, the self-sacrificing mis- 
sionaries, the Christian merchants, and the holy and 
devoted men and women who, in every age and in 
every community, have wrought righteousness, been 
zealously affected in every good cause, shed around 
them the radiance of a holy example, scattered 
abroad in every direction the seeds of piety, lived 
in the affections of grateful hearts, and rested from 



34 YOUNG MEN'S 



their labours here to enjoy the recompense of great 
reward in heaven. 

Lovers of souls, the children of our God ! 

Ye are the generation whom the skies, 

And they who heaven's immortal floor have trod, 

Early admit into their sweet society. 

Such share their ministries ; such angels prize; 

With such God's children everywhere rejoice, 

And join with them their prayers and charities, 

Till heaven itself shall gladden at their voice.* 

THE STRENGTH OF YOUTH A SOLEMN TRUST. 

The strength and energy of youth are therefore 
talents of inestimable worth, because they consti- 
tute a power of such incalculable force. They are 
gifts of God. They are a solemn trust, a holy pre- 
rogative, the rule and measure of a future reckoning 
and of an eternal retribution. 

Neither is this a trust for life. As youth is the 
flower of life, so strength is the bloom and fragrance 
of the flower, soon, like it, to wither and decay. The 
impassioned energy of youth ceases with it, and 
leaves behind only the strength of habit, of will, and 
of experience ; or, on the other hand, the weakness 
of ignorance, the bondage of a depraved heart, a 
defiled and polluted disposition, and a seared or 
vindictive conscience. " God giveth power to the 
faint ; and to them that have no might he increaseth 

* See note A. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 85 



strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary ? 
and the young men shall utterly fall : but they that 
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they 
shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, 
and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not 
faint." " Rejoice, young man, in thy youth; and 
let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, 
and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the 
sight of thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these 
things God will bring thee into judgment."* 

The strength of youth may be prostituted to vice, 
exhausted in selfish and sensual indulgence or in 
lazy indolence and inactivity, and, by hurrying man 
to an early grave or a premature old age, treasure 
up wrath against the day of wrath and righteous 
judgment of God, who will recompense every man 
according to his deeds and according to his ability 
and opportunity to know his duty, — tribulation and 
anguish upon every soul of- man that has done evil 
and that has not done good when it was in the 
power of his hand to do it. 

" Oh, awful hour that endeth all our time ! 
When we before our Judge shall trembling stand 
Who shall disclose the heart's deep labyrinth, 
When sins of night shall see the face of day, 
When earth and heaven as witnesses stand by, 
And faltering tongues to gathered worlds confess V 

* Isaiah xl. 29-31 j Ecclesiastes xi. 9. 



36 young men's 



Oh, how sad and melancholy, then, it is to see 
young men, in a world 

"Where nothing seems unreal there 
Save what worldlings hope and fear, 
While o'er a gulf they fleeting pass 
On a bridge of brittle glass/' — 

how melancholy, in such a world and with such a 
fleeting life, to see young men, under the full pres- 
sure of all those energies which might be and 
ought to be their glory, plunging headlong into the 
very depths of ungodliness, worldliness, and vice, — ■ 
of drunkenness, surfeiting, and uncleanness, — 
yielding every power of soul and body as in- 
struments of unrighteousness unto sin, — and thus 
laboriously serving that master whose wages is 
death — the death of self-respect, of all pure and 
high aspirations, of hope, of character, of strength 
itself, and of all well-grounded expectation of salva- 
tion from the wrath to come. 

Dead to all sense of shame, breaking loose from 
the innocence of their childhood, casting off the 
comely habits and pious practices of a paternal 
home, they plunge into excess of riot; and, borne 
onward by the impetus they have acquired in the 
descent, like one running down hill who cannot stop 
although he would, when they reach the mouth of 
the pit they are swept over it into perdition. Such 
young men — very significantly called fast — make 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 37 



fearful progress, waxing, like "seducers," "worse 
and worse." Their night grows darker and darker; 
the edge of conscience duller and duller; the process 
of petrifaction in their heart more and more rapid 
till it acquires the hardness of stone ; when, wallowing 
in the mire of the lowest sensuality, they can make 
eyen a boast of sins from which, on the day when 
they left their father's roof with his blessing on 
their head and a mother's warm tears on their 
cheek, they would have shrunk with feelings of indig- 
nant abhorrence, exclaiming, "Am I a dog, that I 
should do such things?" 

YOUTHFUL SINS MANHOOD'S SORROWS AND 
death's PANGS. 

The remark is often made, when the spectacle of 
such a young man is presented, that "he is sowing his 
wild oats," that after a time he will come to himself 
and reform, and that he may even yet be converted and 
saved and become perhaps a burning and shining light 
in the Christian church. Most dangerous and damn- 
able delusion ! Be it far from thee, young man, 
young Christian, Christian parent ! For while 
it is true that the natural tendency of youth is to 
the indulgence of unbridled passion, and this with 
less care about concealment than is felt in after- 
years, and while it is further true that, in some 
instances in which passion has been thus indulged 
4 



YOUNG MENS 



for a season, divine grace has been mighty enough 
to subdue that passion, and convert the open and 
hearty servant of sin into the open and hearty servant 
of Christ, — yet to say that the indulgence in sin of 
any kind either renders more probable the conver- 
sion of the sinner, or in any way fits the sinner for 
conversion or for usefulness after conversion, (if by 
mighty grace he is ever converted,) — or to say that 
sin of any kind can be indulged in at any period of 
life, without imminent danger, — is not more at vari- 
ance with the teachings of human experience than 
it is with the lessons of the word of God. 

During a ministry of nearly twenty years, says a 
pastor, I have seen a great deal of "wild oats" sown; 
and I never yet have seen any thing but " wild oats" 
reaped from "wild oats" sown. I have seen many 
a one in early manhood " throwing the reins upon 
the neck of his lusts," who, ere the prime of man- 
hood was passed, had become an outcast from 
society and filled a dishonoured grave. And the more 
warm-hearted and generous the natural disposition of 
the young man was, the more rapidly has vice done its 
fearful work, and the more terrible the wreck it has 
made. I have seen others giving way for a time to 
the indulgence of passion, who afterwards became the 
hopeful subjects of divine grace. And I have heard 
them, as they have smarted under the consequences 
of their youthful sins, lament their course in early 
life, in language like that of Job — " Our bones are 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 39 



full of the sins of our youth, which shall lie down 
with us in the dust." 

A venerable old man, an elder in a Presbyterian 
church, was once surveying a tract of land, as an 
executor, in order to divide the estate. He and his 
co-nipanious reached a certain cleared lot on the 
mountain; and, turning to the gentleman with him, 
he said, " I never see this lot without a feeling of 
shame." " Why so?" asked his friend. " Because 
as many as fifty years ago, when I was a boy, I 
came with some other boys to this lot one night and 
took some watermelons without asking the owner's 
leave !" 

This aged Christian would often dwell upon the 
sins of his youth and mourn over them. 

It so happened one evening that Uncle H. (says 
a narrator of the fact) sat by the old-fashioned open 
fireplace, in which a cheerful fire was burning. He 
sat as if lost in earnest meditation, and occasionally a 
sigh escaped him. An individual present, noticing 
this, said, abruptly, " Well, what is the matter now?" 
Uncle H. seemed disinclined to answer the question; 
but, on being urged, replied, " I would rather have 
kept silent ; but, as you insist on knowing, I am 
thinking about the sins of my youth ; and, I must 
say, they trouble me L" 

There was once boarding with him a religious 
professor who took different views of justification 
from those entertained by " Uncle H." This man 



40 YOUNG MEN S 



seemed to consider justification as nearly synonymous 
with forgetfulness of past sins. They often con- 
versed on this point, the one asserting that when 
Christ forgives our sins we ought to forget them 
and have no more trouble about them, and that, if we 
do not, it is evident that they are not forgiven ; 
the other replying that David, though forgiven, 
said, "My sin is ever before me," and that Paul, 
though forgiven, spoke with grief and shame about 
his having " persecuted the church of God." 

This must be so. It is the law of nature. It is 
the necessary result of our mental and moral being. 
It is also the law of the kingdom of grace. As a man 
sows, so shall he reap. As a man sows, and what a 
man sows in the spring-time of life, he must reap in 
a multiplied harvest in the summer of manhood and 
the winter of old age. If he sows wind, he must then 
reap whirlwind. If he sows to the flesh, he must 
reap corruption. If he sows wild oats, he must, like 
the prodigal, vainly try to fill himself with the 
husks which the swine do eat. "Lust, when it is 
conceived, bringeth forth sin ; and sin, when it is 
finished, bringeth forth death." "Thou fool, that 
which thou sowest thou sowest not that which shall 
be," but what shall bear multiplied products, and 
"from every seed its own body and its own fruits." 

" Who sows the serpent's teeth, let hirn not hope 
To reap a joyous harvest." 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 41 



"There can be little doubt that most persons settle 
the question of their eternal destiny while young. 
This is the time of roots and seeds, the time of foun- 
dations, the time of fountains and of laws, the time 
of principles and prophecies, that are to be de- 
veloped and fulfilled in the man and in the angel, 
good or bad. This is the time of quick and vivid 
sensibility to impressions from abroad, whether good 
or evil ) the imitative time of our being • the repro- 
ducing time of examples; the time of intense feel- 
ing and of energy and impulse in following the 
heart and in carrying out its purposes." 

The process of self-education, as Foster says, 
is then going on, even though unobserved, and tend- 
ing fast towards the ultimate fixed form of character. 

" One season cannot be changed for another, the 
summer for the spring, nor the autumn for the 
summer. We go on, indeed, sowing seed all the 
way through life ; and each successive period of 
life is a most impressive reality, — a period of proba- 
tion and of seeds for the next period, — because what 
we were and what we did yesterday is continually 
coming out in consequences to-day. But the one 
grand seed-period of our being, the period of the 
oaks that build the ships in which our fortunes are 
embarked for eternity, the period of all the com- 
manding fixtures and features of the character, is 
never repeated, and is ordinarily early in life. The 

roots of our earliest habits twine themselves all 
4* 



42 young men's 



about our immortality. The trunk of character, 
strengthened by such roots, is immovable; and the 
branches spread themselves out a mighty shade of 
foliage. So prodigiously, intensely energetic is the 
impressible period and growing power of our being. 
And it depends therefore upon what we meet with 
and entertain at such a period, whether we shall 
become apostles of good or of evil in our fallen 
world, because it meets with the growing, germinat- 
ing power, the enthusiastic, imaginative, impulsive 
tendency, and carries the mind onward to results. "* 
How awful, then, Christian young man, is the 
infatuation of young men around you, growing up 
in all the wildness and inflexibility of their evil and 
corrupt natures, and filling the land with their rank 
and baleful luxuriance, their poisonous exhalations, 
and their soul- destroying fruits ! 

" Oh, what a wilderness about us lies 
Of spirits, each wrapp'd round in fleshly cell, 
Could we but see beyond each other's eyes 
This universe of souls 'mong which we dwell, 
Each in himself a world, — a heaven or hell 
Therefore it is of life's short span 
So often written in the sacred page, 
"Which, pointing immortality to man, 
Holds up in mirror life's short pilgrimage, 
In every form which may the soul engage, 
And then each talent weighs in duty's scale. 
Mysterious thought of never-ending age ! 

* From Dr. Cheever's " Voices of Nature/' 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 43 



At sight of which the strongest heart should pall, 

And dread, ere heav'n be won, lest life itself should fail. 

Each hour is like an angel, which, with wings, 

Comes from and goes to heaven ; yet empty ne'er 

Comes or returns, but some occasion brings, 

And hastens back to heaven, the tale to bear 

Of evil, or fresh store to treasure there. 

Pity looks down from heaven's o'erarching roof, 

Awe-struck to see how swift our hour is sped, 

To see while day and night weave the thin woof, 

Eternity is hanging o'er the thread, 

And then that hour that numbers 'mong the dead 

Numbers Us 'mong those that die no more : 

Time marks not death with unperceived tread 

Steal on behind ; but, while he numbers o'er 

His many days to come, death shuts the eternal door." 

THE GLORY OF YOUTHFUL PIETY AND YOUNG 
MEN THE STRENGTH OF EVERY COMMUNITY. 

On the other hand, how delightful is it to behold 
young men, inspired with the. divine idea of associa- 
tion, united, together on the basis of love to Christ 
and love to sinners, sustained by the principle of 
faith in Christ, obedience to him, and recognition 
of the common salvation and the common brother- 
hood of humanity ! 

" Who can discern the beauty of that power, 
When endless life within the soul is born ! 
Dawns on the soul the everlasting morn ! 
The aspiration of its lofty aim 
Stilling the noise of passion and of mirth, 
Set on her heritage of endless worth, 
And her immortal birthright bent to claim ?" 



44 young men's 



The strength, and power of any community is in 
its young men. For weal or woe, they give it tone 
and character, and life and energy. They will also 
be its future leaders. Out of their ranks must 
come forth the husbands, the fathers, the merchants, 
the operatives, the municipal fathers and legislators, 
the pillars both of the state and of the church. 
The very being and, much more, the well-being, of 
this as of every other community, rests, therefore, 
upon the opinions, character, and habits of the young 
men whose strength is now their glory or their 
shame. 

THE PECULIAR TEMPTATIONS OF YOUNG MEN. 

And hence, of all other classes, our young men 
most emphatically stand in need of the benefits and 
blessings of Christian association. That energy, 
strength, and boldness which constitute their glory is 
at the same time the source of their greatest danger. 
Their pride, passion, and love of independence, like 
unbroken steeds, spurn the control of reason, laugh 
at experience, and, dreaming of no sickness, disease, 
or death, give the reins to passion, rush into the 
very whirlwind of temptation, and sport merrily 
while their hand is upon the lion's mane and their 
feet upon the hole of the serpent. The general 
arrangements of business, its ungodly " hasting 
after" riches, its utter disregard of the health, 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 45 



happiness, and morals of the young men who are 
its instruments, and the whole nature of their sur- 
rounding circumstances and conditions, expose our 
young men to peculiar and almost irresistible temp- 
tations. 

The perverted spirit of our free institutions, the 
want of consideration, intellectual pride, immoral- 
ity, and the inevitable tendency of spiritual dark- 
ness to shut out from itself the light, lead many 
young men to skepticism in one or other of its 
Protean forms. If too conscientious and enlight- 
ened to fall a prey to this snare of the destroyer, 
the same causes render young men unwilling to sub- 
mit fully to the gospel, and induce them to take 
shelter from the storm and tempest of conscience in 
some refuge of lies, some man-constructed system 
of doctrine or philosophy, by which — imagining 
they must think for themselves, that is, hold opinions 
different from those around them — they are easily 
beguiled. "I have been," said such a one, when 
dying, "a most wicked and incorrigible opponent 
of the whole Christian system ; and I know not why 
I was so, but for the pride of opinion " 

In these ways, and by every device, Satan blinds 
the eyes of young men, closes their ears, and locks 
their hearts, so that they may permit their day of 
grace to pass away. This is all he wants; and his 
end is gained, whether this is accomplished by vice, 
folly, frivolity, or vain philosophy, falsely so called. 



46 young men's 



"The young Lord Littleton was in early life the 
subject of deep impressions, under the influence of 
which, he informs us, he retired at a particular time 
to his chamber to pray, with the intention of com- 
mitting his soul to God. As he was on the point 
of kneeling to engage in prayer, he concluded to 
turn aside and close his window-shutter. At the 
window he saw a band of musicians parading the 
streets. The splendour of their appearance caught 
his eye ; their inspiring notes ravished his ear ; he 
rushed from his apartment to the street, joined in 
the crowd, banished his seriousness, and felt the 
strivings of the Spirit no more." This was all that 
Satan desired; since in gaining this he gained, and 
Lord Littleton lost, all. If the fly can only be at- 
tracted by its glare to circle round the flame until, 
intoxicated, it falls into it, its wings are lost; and, if 
not destroyed at once, it is destroyed inevitably. 
"I am a candidate for a fortune," said a young man 
recently in the flush of health and the ardour of 
hopeful prospects, " and I am bound to die rich l" 
Alas! within a year he was dead, and that too 
before he was rich either in earthly or in heavenly 
treasures. 

Ah ! thus it is that, while Christ and his bride the 
church stand in their very presence, beckoning them 
to heaven and holding forth the crown of an immor- 
tal heaven with its imperishable, eternal weight of 
glory, — thoughtless and blinded youth cast their all 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 47 



upon a moment's die, — eternity, the prize of life, 
salvation through the blood of the Lamb; — and, 
Esau-like, barter every thing for baubles, a and buy 
only eternal pains I" 

Of all others, therefore, young men stand in need 
of association, — of the power which is found in the 
example, influence, advice, encouragement, sym- 
pathy, companionship, and occupation which are so 
powerfully brought to bear upon them by associa- 
tion with those of their own age who have like pas- 
sions, feelings, and temptations with themselves. 

YOUTH THE CRISIS OF MAN'S CHARACTER AND 
DESTINY. 

Youth is the crisis of a man's character, — -the 
tide of life which, taken at its height, leads on, ac- 
cording to the power that moves it, to a life of glory 
and of goodness, or to one of shame, hard impeni- 
tence, and unbelief. Of the crimes of Great Bri- 
tain, one-fourth are ascribed to parties under twenty- 
one years of age. In three years, eight hundred and 
thirty-three offenders under that age were committed 
to the Glasgow prison. 

The number of criminals under twenty years of 
age, imprisoned in 1815, in Britain, was 6803, or 1 
in 449 of the population between ten and twenty 
years of age; while in 1844 they amounted to 
11,348, or 1 in 304 of the population of the same 



YOUNG MENS 



In London, between the years 1844 and 1848, 
the proportion of criminals under twenty years of 
age to the population of the metropolis under that 
age increased from 1 in 56 to 1 in 47. 

One leading question of the present age, there- 
fore, is to know how to deal with juvenile delin- 
quents. 

THE NUMBER AND IMPORTANCE OF YOUNG MEN 
IN ANY COMMUNITY. 

Such are the temptations of young men, and such 
the danger of their being lost to society, and of 
their becoming a curse instead of a blessing. 

Now, there are probably not fewer than between 
two and three thousand young men in this city. 
They are essential to its very existence. There is 
not a store in this city which would not be closed 
but for the needful services of its young men- not 
a counting-house, not a workshop, not a printing- 
press, which would not be broken up if deprived of 
their vigorous and energetic young men. As prin- 
cipals, as bookkeepers, as clerks, as hands and 
operatives, men still endowed with the energy, en- 
terprise, and strength of youth sustain and carry on 
the various busy operations of this and of every 
other mercantile community. 

The character of any city, therefore, — of its busi- 
ness, its manufactures and its arts, depends on the 
character of the young men. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 49 



The permanence, prosperity, popularity, and pro- 
fitable success of every mercantile concern depend 
vitally and to a very great extent upon the honesty, 
the address, the energy of the young men, upon 
the hearty zeal with which they enter into the inte- 
rests of their employers, and upon the intelligence 
and pleasing and obliging manners with which they 
conduct themselves. 

And hence it follows that the future progress and 
elevation of this and of any city, its prosperous 
rivalry with other cities in their rapid increase and 
development, depend more than any thing else — ex- 
cept the blessing of God, which alone maketh rich 
and buildeth up any community, — upon the wisdom, 
spirit, enterprise, large-hearted liberality, far-reach- 
ing sagacity, and therefore that fear of God which is 
the source of these virtues and of all true greatness, 
—which characterize its young men. 

THE IMPORTANCE AND CLAIMS OF YOUNG MEN'S 
CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 

Such, then, being the relation of young men to 
every community, (not now to refer to our families, 
to our social character, and to our churches,) — such 
being their supreme importance to its prosperity, — 
such being the peculiar circumstances which isolate 
young men as a class from those around them, — 
and such being the peculiar temptations by 
5 



50 YOUNG MEN'S 



which their virtue and pious purposes are assailed, — 
it is very evident that an association of young men 
on Christian principles is of unspeakable importance. 
The leaven which shall purify this mass must be 
mingled with it. The light that shall enlighten it 
must radiate from the centre outwards. And the 
all-pervading and elevating power of Christian 
principle must be brought to bear upon our young 
men through the sympathy and love of young men 
like themselves. 

the advantages they secure to young men. 

The Young Men's Christian Association 
presents, therefore, very strong attractions to every 
Christian young man in the community. Would 
you, my dear young friend, strengthen and invigorate 
your own Christian life; — would you enjoy the bless- 
edness of doing good, — good to those most needful 
of it, to whom you have peculiar access, over whom 
you have peculiar power, and in benefiting whom 
you most effectually advance the interests of society at 
large;— would you increase your own happiness and 
gather round you all the delight springing from sym- 
pathy and fellowship with kindred spirits; — would 
you secure to yourself friends, acquaintances, a home 
where you can cultivate both the head and the 
heart? — then become an active, zealous, and warm- 
hearted member of some Young Men's Christian 
Association. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 51 



ALL CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN OF EVERY DENOMI- 
NATION MAY UNITE. 

No Christian man — who loves the gospel more 
than he does any creed of human origin, and Christ 
in his divine glory and grace and infinite all-suffi- 
ciency more than he does any denomination upon 
earth — need hesitate to unite in such association. It 
is simply, sincerely, and purely evangelical. It is 
not polemical nor aggressive in any sense except as 
against sin. It is neither sectarian, doctrinal, nor 
ecclesiastical. Its basis is Christ the power of God 
and the wisdom of God unto salvation to every one 
that believeth. Its power is the practical, expe- 
rimental, saving, and sanctifying knowledge of Christ 
formed in the heart the hope of glory. Its instru- 
mentality is the gospel as the only regenerator of 
man individually and of man socially. The recep- 
tion of that gospel, and love and devotion to that 
Saviour, are the only qualifications for union with 
such an Association. It knows no church in parti- 
cular, except so far as membership in it gives evi- 
dence of these qualifications being possessed by its 
representatives. It looks beyond particular churches 
to the church visible, — the holy catholic church 
throughout the world; and it looks upward above all 
rites and forms and peculiar tenets, as held and loved 
and deemed vitally important upon earth, to member- 
ship in the church spiritual and invisible, — consti- 



52 young men's 



tuted of all those who are born by a new celestial 
birth, whose names are written in heaven, whose 
aims and hopes and joys are one, and to whom it* is 
a blessed privilege to labour together with Christ in 
seeking and saving the lost. 

No one, therefore, need keep back. There is here 
no compromise of doctrine, order, or principle. To 
associate Christian young men; to strengthen and 
confirm their faith and hope and zeal; to provide 
comfortable rooms and reading, and perhaps physical 
refreshment* for young men generally whether 
they are professing Christians or not; to encourage 
their friendship; to aid and assist them in every 
way; to preserve and increase in them all good pur- 
poses; to deliver them from temptation; to present 
before them the example of living, loving, and 
cheerful piety, and thus to lead them by the cords 
of a man to the Saviour and salvation; to be 
ready, on any occasion of public sickness and cala- 
mity or of private and personal necessity, to lend 
their services to the cause of suffering humanity; 
and to devise and prosecute labours of Christian 
love among the young, the poor, and the destitute : — 
this is the sum and substance of the end contem- 
plated by such an association. 

Young Men's Christian Associations, therefore, 
have powerful and undisputed claims to the appro- 

* To the extent of tea, coffee, butter and bread, as in London. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 53 



bation, encouragement, sympathy, and assistance of 
every member of the community; of every one to 
whom the character of our future husbands, fathers, 
and rulers is dear; especially of every man of busi- 
ness ; and more emphatically still of every one who 
names the name of Christ.* 



* In this connection I would give what prominence and 
permanence I may to the following suggestion relative to city 
clerks and young men employed in similar ways. It is from 
the Presbyterian : — 

"Messrs. Editors: — A young gentleman, my relative, a 
clerk in New York, lately paid me a visit, and, among other 
matters, he informed me that he did not go statedly to church 
on the Sabbath, because he had no pew or seat, and was wholly 
unable from his little salary to rent one. He said, also, that 
very many clerks spent the whole Sabbath at home, and not a 
few of them in utter idleness and folly ; that they could not 
afford to pay for seats, and, being very often ' looked' out of 
pews, and not rarely turned out by the sextons and others, 
they had become bitter in their feelings against religious 
people, and wholly infidel in their sentiments. 

" I cannot now write any thing elaborate on this matter, but 
would respectfully suggest whether our religious and moral 
merchants cannot devise a plan of renting seats or pews, and 
in pleasant parts of the churches, for their clerks and appren- 
tices, requiring all such to attend worship on the Sabbath, and 
refusing to employ any who will not agree to such an arrange- 
ment. " 

"The foregoing is from a respected clerical brother, who 

states no imaginary case,* nay, we have reason to apprehend 

it is but one of many similar cases. In our large cities there 

are thousands of apprentices and clerks who, from straitened 

5* 



54 YOUNG men's 



WHY THESE ASSOCIATIONS REQUIRE LIBERAL 
ASSISTANCE AND LARGE RESOURCES. 

It is therefore very evident that Young Men's 
Christian Associations can only fully succeed by libe- 
ral help, as well as by the general sympathy and 
fervent prayers of the community at large. 

Every Association ought to have a very corn- 
means and want of friendly encouragement, have no connec- 
tion with our churches. They are not only unable, however 
good their will might be, to purchase or to rent pews, but, 
feeling that a constant attendance at any place of worship 
would be regarded as an intrusion, they stay away, and be- 
come utterly indifferent to religion, or positively hostile to it, 
because its privileges can alone be purchased with money, 
which they cannot command. It is well worthy of considera- 
tion whether there is not a radical defect in the system which 
is now pursued, which, to so great an extent, excludes the 
worthy poor from our sanctuaries. Why should those who 
happen to have money be a privileged class, driving back into 
corners and galleries those in all moral and religious respects 
their superiors? And if this distinction cannot well be over- 
looked, why, at least, should not all our churches have inter- 
spersed, in the various aisles, pews well furnished for strangers, 
where they could feel as if they were not intruders? And 
why, as our correspondent suggests, should not employers rent 
pews for their clerks and apprentices, which would be amply 
repaid by the improved morals of these subordinates? Some 
remedy should be found for an evil which actually exists. 
Many young men who will become a disgrace to society by 
their vices might thus be rescued to be the future supports 
and ornaments of the church. — Eds. Pres." 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 55 



fortable, spacious, well-aired and well-situated house, 
— A home. This building should be so arranged as 
to provide a convenient reading-room, well supplied 
with papers and one or more periodicals ; — a sitting- 
room commodiously furnished and suitably aired 
and warmed; — a library supplied with fresh, attrac- 
tive, and profitable books; — and a hall for social 
meetings, private lectures, essays and debates, Bible- - 
classes, and for whatever other exercises may bo 
suggested by a wise experience. 

Every Association should have the means also of 
providing lectures from distinguished men in all parts 
of our country, and of publishing and circulating 
such lectures, addresses, or tracts as would be found 
useful to young men. 

There is thus a necessity for means far beyond 
those hitherto provided, both for making such asso- 
ciations what they have not yet been, and for open- 
ing up to them ways of usefulness and sources of 
attraction not yet contemplated. 

AN APPEAL TO MERCHANTS AND CITIZENS. 

I appeal, then, on behalf of the Young Men's 
Christian Association among you, to every merchant 
and man of business in the community. Here is a 
way in which you may greatly benefit the young 
men of your adopted and cherished city; — at once 
please and profit them ; encourage them to be and 



56 young wen's 



to do good and to eschew evil \ preserve and purify 
them ; endear them to you, to each other, to their 
friends, families, and churches ; stimulate them to 
intellectual and moral excellence, and to energy, 
perseverance, honesty, and honour; render them 
better men, better clerks, better salesmen, better 
cashiers, better agents, better creditors, and better 
merchants, better every way, whether as friends 
of your family, suitors to your daughters, husbands 
to your loved and cherished ones, fathers of your 
families, officers in your banks, directors in your 
railroad-companies, aldermen in your Council, and 
officers in your churches. 

Would it then be too much to ask every merchant, 
every house of business, every man to whom the 
services and character of young men are important, 
if not every family and every Christian, to make an 
annual contribution to this association? In what 
other way could you do so much to advance your 
own interests as by encouraging young men to unite 
together in zealous co-operation for their own im- 
provement; — by providing them with ample means 
for attracting others to their rooms, their meetings, 
their lectures, and their various churches; — by 
banding together those who, with energy, should 
also have the disposition to be zealously affected in 
every good work by which the health, happiness, 
and moral and spiritual improvement of the com- 
munity may be promoted; — by thus elevating the 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 57 



standard of character attainable and maintainable by 
young men ; — by providing an increasing body of 
young men in whose honour, honesty, and energy, 
if not also in their piety, the community might 
repose confidence in any position of trustworthiness 
and zeal, — by thus rendering vice more vicious, 
immorality more degrading, gambling, drunkenness, 
extravagance and dishonesty in every form more 
disgraceful, — by demonstrating that true religion is 
identified with all that is honourable, manly, and 
noble in character, and that it is promotive of the high- 
est interests and happiness of the life that now is as 
well as of that which is to come, — and that, in the 
language of an ancient proverb, there is a shame 
(the shame of being religious) which is sin, and truly 
shameful, whereas there is a shame (the shame of 
being sinful, irreligious, and cowardly and inactive 
in the cause of God) which is life and glory; — that 
voluntarily to eschew evil and avoid it, to choose 
good and pursue it, to make good our object and our 
end, and to live for others at the sacrifice of self and 
for the love of Christ, is the very essence of heroism; 
and that he who by shining acts marks out his as- 
cending way is in the path of glory shining more 
and more unto the perfect day, — 

Still nearer heaven, still more and more divine 
Her mansions, as he nears the eternal shore. 

Were our leading men of business to set an ex- 



58 young men's 



ample in this matter; allow to their young men 
their evenings for bodily recreation, and for mental, 
moral, and spiritual improvement; and encourage 
their attendance at the rooms and meetings and 
social unions of these Associations ; what glorious re- 
suits might we not look for in the future character 
and prosperity of our city, our families, and our 
churches ! 

WHY ALL CHRISTIANS, AND YOUNG MEN SPECIALLY, 
REQUIRE ASSOCIATION. 

But, whatever may be the course pursued by 
others, let me encourage you, my young friends, — 
and all you who have strength and energy and spirit 
enough and love enough to Christ and to the souls 
of young men to unite with them in doing good, — 
to avail yourselves of the advantages of the Young 
Men's Christian Association. 

It is, as I have shown, in its nature, principle, 
object, and instrumentality, Christian, — gene- 
rated, inspirited, and sustained by the divine life of 
Christianity. That life quickens in individuals the 
sense of responsibility, gratitude, and love to God and 
love to souls perishing around them. But it also 
enlightens and enlivens man's social nature, and 
leads him to seek encouragement, help, and strength 
in those who, like himself, are quickened and made 
new creatures in Christ Jesus. This is the instinct 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 59 



and security of the Christian, whose life is now 
a warfare against sin within and temptation 
without. 

And in the very woods around us may we not behold 
a lesson on the necessity of this union and co-opera- 
tion ? i The branch cannot but wither that is cut from 
the parent vine/ The leaf depends for life upon its 
protecting stem. The young and tender and even 
the hardy trees find protection from the stormy blast 
and the biting frost in their congregated union. 
And the elements that are needed to cherish life in 
one tree are provided by another, so that they minis- 
ter to each other's comfort, sustenance, and life. 
And wouldst thou, Christian, be a dweller in the 
woods of human life, — whether you stand in the 
crowded mart of commerce, in the shady grove of 
domestic and social life, or among the cedars of Le- 
banon, the garden of the Lord where trees of right- 
eousness are planted by the rivers of living water, — 
and yet think to dwell alone in selfish independence ? 
" Behold, the beasts shall hurt thee, weak, naked, 
houseless outcast. Disease and death shall track thee 
out as bloodhounds in the wilderness." Or, if thou 
standest, thou shalt be found a poor, weak, and broken 
reed, shaken by every wind and bared by every 
rude blast. Thou hast a social spirit, 0, man. 
Alone, thou dreadest and wantest all things. Thy 
strength and comfort are laid up for thee in the 
deep well of humanity. Bless God, therefore, who 



60 YOUNG MEN'S 



has ordained for you the ties of family, of kindred, 
of country, and, above all, of Christian fellowship; 
and who has thus multiplied your resources, out of 
weakness has made you strong, and supplied all 
your need from the storehouse of sympathy and 
friendship and the sweet communion of saints. 

Christian fellowship is therefore absolutely neces- 
sary to Christian life, comfort, and growth. We are 
indeed dependent creatures. We cannot exist alone. 
We live in each other's life, and are moulded by each 
other's character, opinions, habits, and disposition. 
Sympathy creates a moral atmosphere through which 
we are assimilated and fashioned by those associated 
with us. So God has made us. So experience 
teaches us, for a man is known by his company. 
And so God instructs us, for "evil communication 
corrupts good manners, while he that walketh with 
the wise shall be wise.'' 

The reason is very obvious. We are dependent 
on the good will and good opinion of those asso- 
ciated with us. How — asks the divine philosophy 
— can two or more persons walk together in the 
bonds of intimate and familiar acquaintance unless 
they are agreed? There will of necessity be con- 
stant differences, jarring, and ill feeling. To avoid 
this, to be at peace, to walk and work and will and 
enjoy together, we feel constrained to conform our- 
selves to those with whom we wish to associate as 
intimate companions. There is a mutual and grow- 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 61 



ing assimilation, first by the avoiding, and then 
by the abandoning, of all points of difference. 

Example, too, is all-powerful. It exhibits the 
thing done. It makes manifest its reality and its 
practicability. If evil, example seems to guarantee 
safety, satisfaction, the good-will of those who assume 
to be manly, independent, and above the dictation 
of God or man. If good, example on the other hand 
commands our homage, condemns our low, sensual, 
and irrational life, and gives us a living proof that 
true piety is the only source of true dignity, honour, 
happiness, and peace. And whereas an evil example 
is congenial to our naturally-evil heart of unbelief, 
and is commended to us by all the witchery and 
devices of the Evil One, on the other hand conscience, 
experience, observation, the Bible, and the providence 
of God, — God himself, good angels, good men, and 
good women in an eminent degree, — conspire with 
good example in making it. powerful to good im- 
pressions and to holy and happy results. 

ASSOCIATION ONLY POWERFUL WHEN VOLUNTARY. 

It is, however, very important for me to observe, 
and for you to remember, that the power of associa- 
tion lies chiefly in its being voluntarily sought and 
willingly reciprocated. The association even of the 
wicked, the profane, the drunken, the irreligious, 
and the scoffer, when it is only endured because of 
che necessity of circumstances, — as, for instance, in 



62 YOUNG MEN'S 



the prosecution of business, in the case of impenitent 
parents, husband, wife, family, or school-fellows, — 
may even serve to awaken disgust; to unveil the 
heinousness, the meanness, and the vulgarity of sin; 
to create aversion and loathing; to arouse our spirit 
of independence; and to generate principles of virtue 
and habits of piety : — 

Gathering strength and beauty from the storm, 
The unyielding oak grows to majestic form, 
Strengthening its root deep hidden from the view, 
Feeding on air, and drinking heavenly dew. 
Thus habits mould the soul to be a place 
"Wherein may dwell forms of immortal grace, 
While thoughts and tempers in the spirit's shrine 
Grow into shape and take the form divine, 
Fed by the life of the celestial tree, 
And drinking heaven, — elastic, stainless, free. 

Thus were Moses and Daniel prepared by God 
for the bravest services in his cause far from the 
pious homes of Israel. They grew in saintship amid 
the impurities and effeminacy of a heathen palace. 
Josiah also took root and blossomed into an early 
and fragrant piety amid all the blood and filth and 
pollution of the house of his father Ammon and his 
grandfather Manasseh. "I have never doubted," 
said Newton, "that God could convert the heathen, 
since he converted me." 

It is only, therefore, when we choose the sinner's 
company, walk willingly in the counsel of the un- 
godly, stand in the way of sinners, and sit in the seat 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 63 



of the scornful^ that their character and curse become 
inevitably ours. 

But this is equally true of the example and asso- 
ciation of the pious and the good. We may enjoy 
this inestimable blessing in the person of our 
parents, family, and friends, — in a husband, or a wife, 
or a child, or an employer, or a business-companion. 
But if we do not appreciate it, — if it is not really and 
voluntarily and lovingly improved, — it not only does 
us no good, but oftentimes is perverted into a curse. 
Our pride and vanity and self-will and contrary dis- 
positions and desires are offended; and so sin, taking 
advantage of us, works in us hatred and enmity and 
unbelief and hardness and impenitency of heart. 

The power of association lies, therefore, in its 
being voluntarily sought, and in our thus putting 
into the hands of others the key to our hearts and 
submitting them to the plastic power of example 
and companionship. And when therefore young 
persons voluntarily turn away from any willing inti- 
macy and heart-communion with the vile and un- 
godly, and associate themselves with those to whom 
Christianity is truth ; Christ the perfection of glory 
as a model of character; piety the highest style of 
man ; the service of God perfect freedom ; and god- 
liness the chief est joy; — when, I say, young men or 
women thus voluntarily join themselves together, 
they give to association all its mighty power to 
mould and fashion the character and life into 



64 young men's 



conformity with the true, the beautiful, and the 
good. 

How pleasant, therefore, and how good a thing, it 
is to see the young men of our different churches, 
and young men not yet members of any church, as- 
sociated together in these societies ! May you dwell 
together in unity amid the green pastures and the 
living waters of the common salvation, no root of 
bitterness springing up to trouble you ; — the herds- 
men of Lot having no contention with those of 
Abraham; Ephraim not vexing Judah nor Judah 
Ephraim ; and the only strife being to provoke one 
another to love and to zeal in every good word and 
work ! 

CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN URGED BY GRATITUDE TO 
PIETY, ZEAL, AND DEVOTION. 

And as Christ's love alone can unite his children, 
— as Christ's Spirit alone can " pour into our hearts 
that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of 
peace and of all virtues, without which we are 
nothing worth, and without which whosoever liveth 
is counted dead before God," — let a sense of your 
own infinite indebtedness to Christ's mercy keep 
you ever near to his throne of grace, that he may 
ever keep you near to himself, and shed abroad his 
own love and the love of the Spirit, and all the 
fruits of the Spirit, in your heart. 

When you look back to the hole of the pit from 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 65 



winch you were hewed out, and consider how after 
being made a living stone you were built by the 
finger of God into that noiseless temple which is not 
made with lianas, eternal in the heavens; — when 
you call to mind how, amid the fretful circumstance 
of passing time, weary and heavy-laden and tossed 
about by every vain distracting care, Christ called 
you by his still small voice into a mountain apart, 
and there amid the unearthly calm of his own 
blessed presence spake peace and rest to your 
troubled soul; — when you remember how, while you 
lay in your blood, polluted, an outcast foundling, 
abandoned by all earthly pity, — 

He bathed thee erst in life's eternal fount, 
And took thee through the gate of his own grave 

Unto the haunts of the celestial mount, 

With dews of life thy dying soul to lave ; — 

when, I say, you think upon these things, you will 
be ready to exclaim — 

Ye shining ones that walk on heaven's high wall, 

Look down ; behold me from your heights around ; 

Come, see and hear, bear witness to my call ! 

What miracle of mercy have ye found 

Equal to mine ? — With sins encompass'd round, 

A lonely exile in the vale of tears, 

One struggling 'mid the rocks, his comrades drowned, 

An unarm'd one travelling 'mid hostile spears, 

With such an one to walk the Almighty Lord appears. 

Me hath he called to love him; me hath he deign'd 

To call his child; for me his life-blood pour'd ; 

And when I turn from him, then he is pain'd. 



66 young men's 



To all things else his all-constraining word 

Sets bounds, and o'er them throws his holding cofd 

But to our love : He asks our being whole. 

And who unto the soul can bounds* afford ? 

He who can all the infinite control 

Alone can meet her love, alone can fill the soul. 

I ask not wealth ; I ask not length of days, 

Nor joys which home and rural sights bestow, 

Nor honour among men, nor poets' praise, 

Nor friendship, nor the light of love to know, 

"Which with its own warm sun bathes all below ; 

Nor that the seed I sow should harvest prove ; 

I ask not health, nor spirit's gladdening flow, 

But an assured pledge of rest above, — 

A heart to feel and recompense Thy love 

By loving Thee all earthly things above. 

THE POWER OF ASSOCIATION EXERCISED BY BOOKS, 
ETC. AS MUCH AS BY PERSONS. 

Let me, before passing from this point, remind 
you, my young friends, that the power of association 
is, to a very great extent, exercised by the dead 
as well as by the living; by the absent as well as 
by the present; by those you have never seen as 
well as by those in whose society you live and 
move; by books, by pictures, by music, and 
by all our in-door and out-door amusements and 
occupations. 

Much, if not the greater part, of man's association 
in this day of general knowledge and cultivation is 
found in the silent companionship of the books and 
newspapers with which he daily communes, and in all 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 



the other employments of his daily life. These con- 
stitute much more truly his associates, and exercise 
over him a much more powerful influence, than his 
living companions. This is the atmosphere in 
which he really lives and moves and has his being, 
and which, all the more powerfully because all the 
more unconsciously, creates and sustains his pecu- 
liar taste, temperament, opinions, and habits. 

This is a point of unspeakable importance to the 
young, and yet but little considered. Young men, 
it has been said, are like the chameleon. They take 
their colour from the objects with which they are 
brought in contact, be they personal or material. 
They have as yet no character of their own, fixed and 
immovable; and being, like sheep, gregarious, they 
readily yield to the impulse of any leader and follow 
a multitude to do evil. Now, it is in books that this 
communion of soul is most intimate, unreserved, 
absolute. Continents and centuries present no 
obstacle to such intercourse. Time and space are 
annihilated by this mental and moral association. 
Man walks continually in the presence and under 
the influence of those who have drawn him to 
their silent society and by the irresistible attraction 
of their powerfully-entrancing witchery of style 
and tragic story. Thoughts that would kindle a 
blush of shame if uttered, scenes which would shock 
by their abominable shamelessness if witnessed, 
actions which he would condemn as equally dis- 



68 young men's 



honourable and degrading, and principles which he 
has been taught to regard as impious and profane, a 
man may allow to pass before the eye of his mind, to 
enter the ear of the soul, and to awaken spiritual im- 
pressions, perceptions, and feelings. And thus, in the 
confidence of his own personal morality and upright- 
ness, a man may permit visions of hell to be daguerreo- 
typed upon his heart, and leaven of corruption to 
mingle with the very elements of his being : — 

Youth, confident in self, tampcreth with dangerous dalliance, 
Till the vice his heart once hated has lock'd him in her foul 
embrace. 

The power of God's moral government over such a 
man is by this silent and unobserved process de- 
stroyed, and the soul-inspiring ideas of God, eternity, 
heaven, and hell, being eclipsed, the heart becomes 
insensible to every pure and holy motive, because 
the light and love and power of the gospel are 
effectually shut out from the darkened soul. The 
citadel is undermined before alarm is given. While 
the man sleeps, tares are sown and soon spring up to 
choke the better seed. And while he lies slumbering 
in dreamy self-indulgence on the lap of this Delilah, 
his hair is shorn, his strength is gone from him, and 
he walks forth as at other times into the midst of 
temptation, not knowing that God has departed from 
him. Satan having entered into his heart, finds 
that instead of resisting he becomes an easy prey, a 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 89 



willing captive, a degraded bondsman, submitting, 
by a self-entailed compulsion, the whole man to low, 
sensual, and grovelling pleasures and pursuits. 

THE EXPLANATION OP A MYSTERY. t 

This is the secret of that mystery which often 
meets us in the world, when there is some sudden and 
unlooked-for development of vice, crime, or ungod- 
liness in the life of some man or woman whose out- 
ward conduct, associations, and professions were all 
hitherto irreproachable; and why also it is that so 
many live in impenitency and unbelief against all 
the likelihoods from parental piety and instruction, 
of their early conversion and consecration to God. 

Their secret associations have been with books, 
pictures, and papers which feed the ungodliness and 
sinful carnality of their natural hearts. Their in- 
door, inward life has been one of vanity and fictitious 
demoralizing worldliness. They have thus been living 
in an atmosphere of sin, and generating the streams 
of a growing sensuality, carnal-mindedness, and 
practical atheism, until the pent-up waters at length 
burst forth in some open development of the 
iniquity which had long been accumulating in the 
heart. The poisonous malaria which had so long been 
secretly inhaled has vitiated the very life-blood of 
their moral constitution, so that, set on fire of hell, 
raging with the fever of sensuality or of vice in 



YOUNG MENS 



some other form, and burning with the insatiable thirst 
of impetuous desire, they rush like a frenzied patient 
from the restraints of home, and plunge headlong 
into crime, dissipation, or dishonourable courses. 
The fire-damp long and secretly generated has per- 
meated the recesses of the soul, and only needed the 
spark of temptation to develop it in an explosion 
of terrible, consuming flames, — 

Must it be so because 
I did not scowl temptation from my presence, 
Dallied with thoughts of possible fulfilment, 
And only kept the road, the access open ? 
I but amused myself with thinking of it. 
The free will tempted me, — the power to do 
Or not to do it. Was it criminal 
To make the fancy minister to hope? 
Where am I? "Whither have I been transported? 
No road, no track behind me, but a wall 
Impenetrable, insurmountable, 
Rises obedient to the thoughts I mutter' d 
But meant not! Mine own doings tower behind me! 
A punishable man I seem : the guilt, 
Try what I will, I cannot roll from off me. 

Thus is it that without going into the open ways 
of sin, the course of this world, or into the haunts of 
vice; without seeking in the theatre a provocation 
to lust and intemperance ; and without going hand- 
in-hand with the openly ungodly and profane; young 
men — ay, and young women too — are often led by 
secret passages down to the pit of destruction, 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 



become assimilated in feeling, thought, and cha- 
racter with, those from whose contamination they 
once shrank; and are thus prepared to riot with 
greediness in that uncleanness, the very thought of 
which would once have been repelled as disgusting 
and diabolical. 

CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN EARNESTLY IMPLORED TO 
SEEK THE SALVATION OF OTHERS. 

Christian young man, whosoever thou art that 
readest this appeal, when you remember that you 

From that dark prison-house 
Once pass'd, and, from Egyptian bondage freed, 
Wast led between the walls of hanging seas \ — 

that you too have wandered on the edge of death, — 

Of death that dieth not, — of endless death, — 
And drunk the intoxications of the cup 
Which fill'd your fancy with unreal joys j— 

and when you consider that these, your companions 
in age, in nature, and in destiny, are on every side 
and in every way surrounded by temptations and 
snares and " damnable delusions/' while yet, in 
awful infatuation and cased in self-confidence, they 
are treading on the verge of never-ending woe and 
abusing to their greater condemnation their brief life 
"big with the fate of all eternity;" — oh, will you not 
run to their relief? 

A few years since, says a writer in the Ame- 



72 young men's 



rican Messenger, — a very powerful auxiliary to 
those who would do good, — as with others I was 
detained for some hours on the shore of one of 
our inland lakes by an accident upon a railroad, I 
witnessed an incident which deeply affected me. 
Near where we lingered, impatient of delay, there 
was a deep, wide, and very rapid stream, whose 
waters roared and foamed and plunged over the rocks 
into the lake. In this perilous current there was 
suddenly discovered, as we sat listlessly gazing, a 
human form, apparently lifeless, and rapidly moving 
along with the flood just at its entrance into the 
lake. Quick as thought the party were astir 5 but 
before the older men could adopt a plan for a rescue, 
one of our number, a young man of slender form 
but of a large heart, plunged into the hurrying 
waters and struck out in pursuit of their victim. 
It was a desperate struggle. Those who watched it 
from the shore were almost paralyzed as they gazed. 
But at length the struggle terminated in the triumph 
of the daring young man. Like one determined to 
do his best, he laid hold on the object of his exer- 
tions, and slowly made his way with his burden to 
the shore, where, amid the shouts of the spectators, 
he at length laid it down. The drowned man, to 
all appearance dead, after long and persevering 
effort to restore him, proved to be alive, and, before 
we left the place, spoke, stood up, and walked 
about in our presence. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 73 



This incident suggested to my mind, says the 
writer, such thoughts as these : — 

That noble-spirited young man saved a body from; 
death. But there are souls exposed to an infinitely 
more dreadful death, rapidly passing down the 
perilous current of time, and every moment nearing 
[the awful ocean of eternity. Who shall go to the 
rescue? Old men will counsel and do what they 
can ; but many of them lack the strength and energy 
for quick and enterprising exertion. Who then 
are so suitable as our strong young men to plunge 
into the stream and buffet the waves and lay hold 
upon the perishing ? 

Again: if our young men will but make the 
effort to save the lost, and are successful even in a 
single instance, they will enjoy not only the appro- 
bation of their own consciences and the gratitude 
of the rescued one, but those shouts of joy over one 
sinner that repenteth which echo from the heavenly 
shores. Let such a young man know that he " who 
converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall 
save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude 
of sins." 

Nor this alone. In saving one soul, you save many ; 
for one sinner destroyeth many good. A drowning 
man will drag down, if he can, others with him* 
A wicked man cannot live alone. He must have 
company. He must join hand with hand and take 
7 



74 young men's 



counsel together with those willing to be seduced or 
who are more hardened than himself : — 

With mimic joy and fiendish guile 

They on their victim smile : 
One blindly tears life's charter'd scroll, 

And tramples on the sword ; 
Another hears the inebriating bowl, 

Or whate'er price they need who sell their Lord; 
While folly laughs, to gain the heart and head 

Of those who dream of life while they embrace the dead. 

In the expressive language of Scripture, sinners 
il hatch cockatrice's eggs, and weave the spider's web : 
he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which 
is crushed breaketh out into a viper; and he that 
departeth from evil maketh himself a prey." The 
sinner thus hopes to hide himself in a crowd, to divide 
the risk, to parcel out the criminality, and to bribe 
and blind conscience to be silent. And hence it 
is not only true that a companion of fools shall be 
destroyed, but also that fools will destroy their com- 
panions. In saving one sinner, therefore, you with- 
draw one partner from the conspiracy. His influ- 
ence and power for evil are destroyed. The crowd 
is diminished, and fear and shame act with redoubled 
power on his startled comrades. Sinners are afraid. 
Fearfulness hath surprised them. 

And, further still, every soul rescued is a friend, 
a co-worker gained. He is added to your ranks. 
He is enlisted in your company. He fights under 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 75 



your banner, and is now ready and zealous for every 
good work. 

In him, too, you have your mightiest argument, 
your most overwhelming proof; an irresistible ap- 
peal ; a living exemplification of the possibility and 
the blessedness of salvation ; an epistle which all can 
see and read; one whom all knew as blind and lame 
and dumb, now restored to sight, leaping, and prais- 
ing God who hath done such wonderful things 
for him; a silent but persuasive demonstration of 
the reality and glory of piety — ■ 

That, could it meet the thoughtful gaze of men, 
Would fill the eyes with tears, the breath with sighs, 
Like rain and winds upon the stagnant lake, 
And so amend the heart. 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POWER OP CHRISTIAN 
5TOUNG MEN. 

And this God can make your efforts accomplish. 
Let Christian young men bethink them of their 
mission and their power. "I write unto you, 
young men, because ye are strong, and the word 
of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the 
wicked one." In you " God has ordained strength, 
that he may still the enemy and avenger." 

In the recent terrible calamity occasioned by the 
burning of the steamer John Jay, on Lake George, 
when in one half hour she was burned to the 
water's edsfe and all on board were driven into the 



YOUNG MENS 



water, among the most active in rescuing passen- 
gers was a lad of seventeen, named TVilliani Burnet, 
belonging to Ticonderoga, He dived down six times 
and saved a number of passengers. He was at last 
so overcome by bis indefatigable exertions as to be 
delirious during the night. Three young gentlemen 
of Philadelphia, — Messrs. Hutchinson, — who very 
early stripped themselves to their underclothes, 
a&w saving their father and three sisters, were, by 
their energy and advice, instrumental in saving 
many others. They behaved with great coolness 
and confidence. Such, also, is your power, your 
trust, your solemn charge, Christian young men. 
For amid the daily scenes and intercourse of life, 
as you go out and come in, as you travel and when 
you rest, at home and abroad, in #the counting- 
house and the family circle, in the street and alley, 
and in the rolling car or the winged steamer, you 
may find opportunities of doing good. And thus also, 
amid the too frequent storms and wrecks of life, may 
you become the deliverer of the perishing, the praise 
of the living, and yourself doubly blessed as you see 
some mother clasping and kissing over and over again 
her rescued boy plucked from her arms by the de- 
stroying waves of temptation, and gone, she feared, 
hopelessly and forever ; or, while you cheer some almost 
lifeless and self-ruined youth with hopes of mercy, 
and clinging to him with the grasp of a love stronger 
than death, bear him safely to the shore. Cling to 






CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 77 



him; yes, grasp him with a yet holier, more agoniz- 
ing hope and prayer and confidence. Imitate that 
heroic woman on board the Northern Indiana, which 
was also recently destroyed by fire, — Mrs. Fowler. 
Having made her husband put on the only remaining 
life-preserver, and tearing away her bonnet already in 
flames, she plunged with him into the lake. When 
they rose to the surface she wiped the water from his 
mouth and eyes and encouraged him to retain his 
hope of being saved. He continued to struggle with 
the waves. Half an hour elapsed, and there were no 
signs of assistance. His strength was rapidly failing. 
His wife, observing it, tried all the more to cheer him. 
He said he could not stand it any longer ; it seemed 
as though he must give up. At that moment she 
heard a steamer coming rapidly through the water. 
" My dear husband/ ' she said, " a few moments more 
and we are safe. Don't you hear a boat coming ?"' 
He said he did, and, immediately reviving, made all 
the effort in his power, and struggled for himself 
and his heroic wife until the u Mississippi" came 
up and took them, with scores of others, on her 
commodious decks. Thus, also, my young Christian 
friend, throw around your perishing brother the life- 
preserving promises of the gospel ; thus convince him 
that your heart's desire and prayer is that he may 
be saved ; thus wipe from his eyes the tears of de- 
spondency 5 thus smile away the gloom of hopeless 
despair; and, as the sound of mercy comes from the 



78 YOUNG men's 



blessed gospel, point him to the life-boat of salvation 
hasting to his deliverance, and urge him with one 
last desperate effort to lay hold of the rope thrown 
out for his salvation, and to cast himself into the 
arms of Him who stands ready to receive and to save 
him in his uttermost extremity. 

In the " Messenger'' for February was an account 
of the happy death of a young man who was brought 
to Christ through the divine blessing upon a faith- 
ful pencil-note handed him by a youthful stranger 
in the cars between Princeton and New York. The 
request of bereaved friends to hear from the writer 
of the note has been answered. 

On the evening of the first day of February, a 
young merchant of New York, being in New Orleans 
on business, dropped into the rooms of the Young 
Men's Christian Association of that city, after 
having addressed the boys of the city workhouse. 
Taking up the " Messenger" for February, he was 
looking over it, when two strangers entered, whom 
he approached as he would in the rooms of the Society 
in New York, of which he is an active member. He 
entered into conversation with one of them, whom 
he was on the point of asking whether he was a 
Christian, and if not if he did not expect to be, 
when his eye fell on the very words in the article, 
" Railroad Letter." 

11 I had not," he wrote to a friend, "read over five 
lines when I dropped the paper : — Is it possible that 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 79 



my query to that strange youth I sat with in the 
cars has got into the paper? I read on, and im- 
mediately felt that I had been the instrument, in 
God's hand, of converting a soul. Oh, what joy ! 
I never knew till then what pleasure it would be to 
be conscious of being the means of saving an im- 
mortal soul. I retired to my room to thank God 
for his goodness in showing me some result to feeble 
efforts in his cause. I have prayed often that I 
might have this privilege here on earth; and now 
God has in his own good time, and by such ways 
as to him seemed best, revealed to me for my en- 
couragement that we do not — yea, cannot — sow in 
vain." 

What a blessed reward has this young Christian 
experienced from his labours for Christ, in the joy 
of that happy hour ! May not every Christian in 
whose heart there is an earnest love for souls hope 
for like sources of joy either io this or in the better 
world ? Would that the inquiry in his letter might 
lead many to the action it suggests! "If a few 
words may do so much good, by the blessing of God, 
oh, why do we not oftener speak them in humble 
faith i» 

Lagging hours, that seem to linger. 

Yet may thus each have a finger, 

Pointing wandering souls to heaven. 

And thus, while lengthening shades of even 

On life's dial fall, and now 

Darker shadows round thee go, 



80 YOUNG MEN'S 



Yet thy works may pass before, 
Waiting thee, — a blessed store ! — 
In their number, weight, and measure, 
Laid up in enduring treasure. 

CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN MUST EXEMPLIFY CHRIS- 
TIAN CHARITY. 

To such labours of love and faith and prayer you 
are summoned by the common feelings of humanity 
which prompt to pity and compassion for all who 
are in danger and distress, and this all the more 
powerfully if they are in such circumstances as we 
ourselves have known by bitter experience to be 
imminently hazardous. But Christianity, — embo- 
dying the example of Christ, his love, his mercy, 
his blood and righteousness, his humility and infinite 
condescension, his sufferings and death, his example 
of self-de aying sacrifice for lost, guilty, ungrateful 
men, — this demands from you not only pity, but also 
mercy. If you only pity the suffering, if you only 
weep with those that weep tears of agony, and 
mourn with those who mourn the loss of all that 
was clear to them, what do ye more than others ? 
Do not even the Gentiles, the ungodly, men 
everywhere, the same ? This is humanity. It is 
natural affection. It proves that you are a man. 
But to be a Christian — to have the Spirit of Christ, 
to do as Christ did, to feel as Christ felt, to love as 
Christ loved, and to do good as Christ did good — you 
must exhibit more than this. You must not only 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 81 



exercise compassion, but mercy. You must con- 
sider men as sinners, guilty, undone, depraved, pol- 
luted, unthankful, selfish, sensual, enemies of God 
and therefore of God's children, loving darkness 
rather than light, proud, scornful, and not only 
neglecters but rejecters of the gospel. You must 
be prepared to receive evil for good, railing for 
entreaty, cursing for blessing, coldness for conde- 
scension, hatred for love, threatening for forbearance, 
and all manner of evil ungenerously and without 
cause heaped upon you. This is what you are to 
expect from sinners. Such is the sad working of 
sin. Such were you and I. Such are all men in 
their conduct towards God whom they contemn, to- 
wards Christ whom they will not have to reign over 
them, and towards the ever-blessed Spirit whom 
they (i resist" and " grieve" and "quench" and even 
" blaspheme." Such was the treatment given to our 
Lord, who came to his own but they received him 
not, who was maligned, traduced, betrayed, falsely 
accused, tried, and condemned, and by wicked hands 
crucified and slain. And yet his life was a life of 
mercy. His death was a sacrifice of mercy. His 
resurrection was an ascension to the throne of mercy, 
that as a Prince and a Saviour he might there ever 
live to give repentance and remission of sins, to 
dispense grace and mercy, and to reconcile, rege- 
nerate, restore, and glorify even his enemies and 
persecutors. 



82 young men's 



This world, this life, this gospel, every thing 
around us, are full of Christ's mercies. They meet us 
at every turn. They are in the air we breathe, the 
water we drink, the health we enjoy, the capacities 
we exercise, the opportunities of business we pos- 
sess, and in the means of living and of supplying our 
rational desires and delights of which through grace 
we are possessed. Yea, it is owing to this mercy we 
are permitted to live and move and have our being, 
so that the very strength with which sinners sin and 
rebel and crucify him afresh and put him to an open 
shame is from the mercy of Christ. Mercy is 
everywhere. Here she runs to meet the returning 
prodigal, and opens her arms to fold him to her bosom. 
Here she pleads with sinners and pronounces pardon 
over the chief of them. Here she weeps with guilty 
sufferers and dries the tear upon sorrow's cheek. 
"And here, eyeing the storm, she launches her life- 
boat through the foaming breakers, and pulls for the 
wreck where souls are perishing. It is her blessed 
hand which rings the Sabbath bell, and her voice 
which on savage shores or from Christian pulpits 
proclaims the Saviour for the lost. None she despises. 
She despairs of none. And, not to be scared away 
by the foulest sin, she stands by its guilty bed, and, 
bending down to death's cold ear, — when the twelfth 
hour is just about to strike, — she looks into the 
glassy eye and cries, l Believe, oh, believe ! only 
believe! for whosoever believeth in the Lord 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 83 



Jesus Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting 
life/ " 

Such is Christ, and such should every Christian be. 
Such is mercy, — that divine quality which charac- 
terizes Christians as " a peculiar people." And let 
it be remembered that Christ fulfilled and finished 
his incarnate mission of mercy while still a young 
man according to the flesh, and that Christ associated 
with himself — in his labours of love, and in his self- 
denials and self-sacrifices, his patience, perseverance, 
and well-doing — young men. To such he gave his 
commission and intrusted the interests of his cause. 
And to them are we indebted for the establishment, 
progress, and perpetuity of the church. From their 
ranks came forth the army of martyrs, the innume- 
rable multitude of confessors, and the great cloud 
of witnesses in every age. Such, then, as Christ 
was, such as his apostles and martyrs were, such 
ought every young man to be. Such, dear reader, 
ought you to be. Let no man then despise thy 
youth. Despise and neglect it not yourself. Make 
Christ your model. Press toward the mark for the 
prize of your high calling in Christ Jesus. Go thou 
and do likewise. " Let the same mind be in you 
that was also in Christ Jesus. For, if any man have 
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his," since 
the love of Christ constraineth all that are Christ's 
to live not unto themselves, but unto him, and to 
follow him in seeking to save the lost.- 



84 young men's 



If indeed you would be either known or felt in 
the world, live not unto yourself. Live for others, 
or you will be passed by the crowd, as they hurry 
on, unnoticed and unfelt. You will be left upon the 
drifting waters, like the useless weed, the rotten 
branch, or the leaky, dismantled, and abandoned 
hulk. The world has no use for you unless you 
are of use to it. It knows you not, cares not for 
you, unless it is to growl at you because you are in 
its way, or rail at you because you are an idle drone 
in the busy hive. The world feels the power of 
none, heeds none, praises none, honours none, and 
rewards none, but those who live and labour and 
do profitable service for it. Slumber and take your 
ease, and you will be left to do so, while the cars 
roll on and all opportunity and occasion for doing 
good in your day and generation has been passed by 
forever. And, as it is in the world, so also is it in 
the kingdom of heaven; for here also no man liveth to 
himself, and no man dieth to himself; for it is only to 
him whose life is Christ — that is, devotion to Christ's 
service in the salvation of souls — is " death gain." 
The true Christian, therefore, whether he lives, lives 
\mto the Lord, or whether he dies, dies unto the 
Lord; whether he lives, therefore, or dies, he is the 
Lord's. 

But continued as well as energetic exertion is 
necessary in order to be useful to others and healthy 
and happy yourself. To loiter is to be passed and 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 85 



left behind in the race. To relax is to enfeeble 
And to make your impressions and produce notice- 
able effect, and then leave them, is to write characters 
on the sand, which the next wave that rolls by will 
forever obliterate. Enter, then, on your life of holy 
devotion and your work of Christian zeal, with all 
the strength of youth and with all the determination 
of will to persevere ; that is, as the converted Hot- 
tentot said, take right hold : — hold on : and never 
let go. And to whatever age and stage of life and 
of Christian life you may arrive, let this still be your 
motto. Persevere. Be not weary in well-doing. 
You will never be too old to do good, nor have ac- 
complished so much as not to be stimulated, for your 
own good and your Saviour's glory, to be " fruitful 
even unto old age." Washington was ready even 
in advanced age to buckle on his armour and meet 
the call and the enemies of his country; and the 
hero of Lundy's Lane is also the hero of Chapul- 
tepec. 

"Vfear out, then; don't rust out. 'Why don't 
you give up business?' said a millionaire's friend, one 
day. 'You are getting old, and have made enough 
to retire on.' * I'd rather wear out than rust out/ 
was the answer; ( and I must do one of the two. 
If I give up business now, after having been habitu- 
ated to it for forty years, I shall die in a twelve- 
month or two from sheer inaction. I shall rust out. 
I cannot do worse by keeping on. No ! let me die, 



86 YOUNG MEN'S 



as the stout knights of old used to say, with the 
harness on my back/ 

"And he was right. Merely as a question of 
health, the retiring from business of active men, 
who have been all their lives accustomed to it, is a 
serious blunder. More have died in consequence 
of it, as sagacious physicians know, than have in- 
creased their happiness,; — unless, indeed, they have 
substituted the work of man-making for the work 
of money-making, and labour for love of souls and 
of Christ instead of labouring for filthy lucre's sake, 
Nature, in fact, wars on idleness. There is not an 
atom in creation that is long at rest. The rain of 
to-day was vapour of yesterday, and that, a week 
ago, was water in the Pacific. The winds maintain 
forever a circulation of fresh air, without which 
vegetables and animals alike would die. No man, 
however wealthy, has a right to rust out. He 
violates the laws of his being if he attempts it, To 
feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to comfort the 
widow and orphan in their affliction, is part of the 
heaven-appointed duty of those who have equally 
money and leisure at their disposal. Wealth and 
retirement are not bestowed for riotous living or 
slothful indulgence. He who sits down, after having 
acquired a fortune, to spend his days in selfish gra- 
tification, literally rusts out soul as well as body. 
True manhood spurns such a cowardly retreat from 
the great battle of life as much as the hero would 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 87 



scorn to be found engaged in dalliance when victory 
was turning against his country. It is only cravens 
who wish to die on silken beds. The brave prefer 
to fall with their armour on and their faces to the 
foe. Wear out! don't rust out V 

u He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto 
the end, to him, saith the First and the Last, will I 
give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give 
him a white stone, and on that stone a new name 
written, which no man knoweth saving he that re- 
ceiveth it. And I will give him the morning star. 
The same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I 
will confess his name before my Father and the holy 
angels. And I will make him a pillar in the temple 
of my God, and he shall go no more out. And I 
will grant him to sit with me in my throne, even as 
I also overcame, and am sat down with my Father 
in his throne. " 

Wouldst thou the life of souls discern ? 

Love is life's only sign. 
The spring of the regenerate heart, 
The pulse, the glow of every part, 
Is the true love of Christ our Lord, 
In works and not in words adored. 
Then we begin to love indeed; 
When, from our sin and bondage freed 

By this all-powerful Friend, 
We follow him from day to clay, 
Assured of grace through all the way, 

And glory at the end. 



YOUNG MENS 



YOUTH IS FRUITFUL OF EXPEDIENTS. 

In thus following Christ you will be aided by 
your youth, not only because it is strong, but also 
because it is fruitful of inventions and plans. It 
will suggest a thousand ways for the better accom- 
plishment of the work of the Lord than perhaps any 
method of doing good now employed; or, at least, for 
securing the same results by novel, striking, and 
attractive agencies. It will be instant in season and 
out of season. It will not weary in well-doing. It 
will sow the good seed in the morning and in the 
evening not withhold its hand, and this, too, beside 
all waters and along every wayside, not knowing 
which shall prosper, — this or that. It will spend and 
be spent, and gather strength from toil, being fer- 
vent in spirit serving the Lord, and counting it 
meat and drink to do his will. 

YOUTH IS ALSO BOLD AND ENERGETIC. 

Youth also is dauntless, bold as a lion, not fear- 
ing the face of man, ready to give to every man 
a reason of the hope that is in him, and to contend 
earnestly for the faith, — if needs be, even unto blood. 
Only let this courage be tempered with discretion, 
so that you may be wise as serpents and harmless 
as doves, becoming all things to all men, hoping all 
things and bearing all things, if by any means you 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 89 



may save some, — catching them with a heavenly 
guile, drawing them by the cords of a man or pluck- 
ing them as brands from the burning. " Seeing 
therefore ye have this ministry, ye faint not." 

Thus, nor the hills and valas that breathe of heaven, 
And vines, and setting suns, and rays of even, 
Alone speak God's blest language ; but the walls 
Of crowded cities echo back his calls, 
Heard sweetly amid rude suburban cells, 
And thickly-peopled towns, where Penury dwells. 
There, haply, some fond parent's aching breast 
Looks for a long-lost child in sad unrest, 
Watching the distance in his lone abode, 
Where opes the window to the mountain road. 
Oh, haste to meet the wanderer on the wild, 
Till Justice yields to Mercy reconciled. 
With yearning heart oh breathe celestial love, 
Melting with mercy such as dwells above, 
That, while sad Memory racks with guilty fears, 
Thy heart-appealing love may move his tears, 
And urge to rise and seek that Father's face 
Who hastes to grasp him in his fond embrace. 

WHAT YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS 
HAVE ALREADY DONE. 

Already these associations have done much, and 
have devised many unpractised, if not unthought-of, 
ways and walks of usefulness. They are now found 
in the lanes and streets and thoroughfares of our 
cities, gathering the outcast ragged children into 
schools, visiting the sick and the dying, the father- 
8* 



90 YOUNG MEN'S 



less and the widow, and, by tracts and books and 
lectures, carrying the gospel to every bouse and 
hovel and garret and chamber. " Like a sunbeam 
passing undefiled through the foulest atmosphere/' 
they are seen labouring in Christian purity aud love 
where the basest of the race are perishing, not 
shrinking from their loathsome guilt, but, with 
Jesus' pity and Jesus' tears, offering to the very 
chief of sinners the cup of salvation, the bread of 
life, the manna of heaven, the living water, and the 
healing balm. 

Under their auspices we find out-door preaching 
in the streets or parks or commons of some of our 
large cities.* They have given rise also to many valu- 

* Preai m\-<; oh Boston Common. — Yesterday afternoon, says 
the "Traveller" of Monday, the 21st instant, at six o'clock, Rev, 
l)r. Kirk, of this city, preached to an audience of about three 
thousand people, in Yale's mammoth tent, which was spread 
for the purpose on the Common, near the pond. The services 
were the same as those usually practised in our churches; and 
the discourse which the reverend preacher delivered, from the 
text furnished in the parable of the Prodigal Son, was well con- 
ceived for such an audience, and was most attentively and re- 
spectfully hearkened to. Out-door preaching having thus proved 
a success, we learn that the Young Men's Christian Association, 
under whose auspices this was conceived, will have further ser- 
vices conducted on next Sunday afternoon, at which the Right 
Rev. Bishop Eastburn will officiate. 

The "Christian Witness and Church Advocate" (Episcopal) 
says of this movement : — "We are glad to learn that a success- 
ful commencement of out-door preaching was made in this 
city last Sunday under the auspices of the Young Men's Chris- 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 91 



able series of public lectures to young men. And 
by their annual conferences they are now converg- 
ing into one centre the light and heat, the enterprise 
and experience, of all affiliated societies, and giving 
the best opportunity for awakening and diffusing 
the spirit of ever-widening charity. 

This may, and we trust will, lead to the publication 
of a weekly paper or monthly magazine, specially 
devoted to the wants of young men, and opening up 
a channel by which sanctified talent and holy zeal 
may communicate the. inspirations of their heaven- 
taught souls to their brethren, and provoke them to 
still greater love and zeal and devotion.* 

On a recent journey to the mountains of Vir- 
ginia, I heard everywhere, as I passed along, com- 
plaints of long-continued and destructive drought; 
and parched fields, clouds of dust, and thin-eared, 
withering crops, gave melancholy proof of the sad 



tian Association. Rev. Mr. Kirk preached, at six o'clock in the" 
afternoon, to an audience of about three thousand people, in 
Yale's mammoth tent, which was spread for the purpose on the 
Common, near the pond. On next Sunday afternoon we are 
informed that there will be service at the same hour. We do 
not know who will officiate. This is a good movement; and we 
hope it will bring multitudes to hear the gospel who are 
now living as if its glad tidings had never sounded upon 
our earth." 

* This, we find, is already initiated in the Quarterly Re- 
porter, under the direction of the Central Committee, at Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. 



92 young men's 



truth. But scarcely had I reached the mountains 
before the clouds began to gather from all quarters 
and to accumulate their combined vapours in one 
general mass, so thick and heavy as to darken the 
mid-day sun and encompass our very dwellings like 
the curtains of night. The winds soon rallied their 
forces. The lightnings commenced their brilliant 
and glorious display of terrific power and grandeur. 
And, as the artillery of heaven, like salvos of can- 
non in honor of some great victory, announced the 
approach of Him who thundereth marvellously with 
his voice and directeth his lightning unto the ends 
of the earth, the heavens poured down, far and wide, 
a copious and fertilizing rain. 

And just such for years had been the condition 
and complaint of the Christian world. Fields dry 
and barren, and " nigh unto cursing/' lay every- 
where, in waste sterility, beneath a heaven impene- 
trable as brass, and fast becoming hard as iron. 
Faithful and believing hearts everywhere bewailed 
in secret places the gloomy and insensible condition 
of the church, and earnestly besought the Lord of 
the harvest to send forth the wind of his Spirit, and 
the dew and rain of his life-giving presence. 
Soon a small cloud was seen in the western horizon. 
Other clouds were attracted by it, and united with it, 
until they spread themselves over the eastern horizon 
also. To drop the figure, Christian young men in 
the heart of London were awakened to the claims of 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 93 



perishing young men around them, and, unnoticed 
and unknown, united themselves for prayer and 
mutual encouragement. Others were attracted and 
interested in their movement. Associations multi- 
plied in England, Scotland, on the Continent, and 
in the United States. Union in prayer and labour, 
in self-denial and self-sacrifice, for the salvation of 
souls, was followed by its promised blessing from 
above. God heard and answered. God looked 
down well pleased, and was with them to bless and 
do them good. His ear was opened. His hand 
was outstretched. The windows of heaven were 
unbarred. Showers of divine grace were poured 
down in copious measure on many a barren field, 
— here a little and there a little. The voice of joy 
and gladness was heard in every land. Praise and 
thanksgiving arose from many a new-born soul, 
from rejoicing friends, and from sympathizing angels. 
The hearts of young men buried in the pursuits of 
earth were again turned to their Saviour and his 
cause, and were led to ask, " Lord, what wouldst thou 
have me to do ?" Our theological seminaries began 
to multiply their diminished numbers, and, as the 
fields after, the genial rain put on their green and 
flourishing attire, and gave promise of an abundant 
harvest, so also has God given the cheering prospect 
of labourers more adequate to his spiritual harvest. 
And if such has been the beginning of this good 
work and such the first-fruits of these associations, 



94 YOUNG men's 



what may we expect in their maturity, through the 
mercy of that gracious Redeemer to whom the hearts 
of the young are so dear, and who has chosen by 
their instrumentality to perfect praise, and to do 
many and even greater works than eye hath yet seen, 
or ear heard, or have entered into the heart of man 
to conceive ? 

WHAT THESE ASSOCIATIONS MAY YET ACCOMPLISH. 

The field is large, the door is open. There is 
yet room — oh, how much room ! — for all that have 
a heart and a hand to work in the vineyard. The 
harvest is white, yea, perishing for lack of labourers, 
and of labourers beyond and supplementary to those 
who "are burdened" and broken down with the 
exhausting, overwhelming duties of the ministry. 
The canvassing of our cities for children to fill mis- 
sion schools in their convenient neighbourhood and 
adapted to their social position,* — the distribution 

* Sunday-school Canvass op London. — The Sunday- 
school canvass of the metropolis has commenced with every 
prospect of a successful result. Mr. Hartley, the Secretary of 
the Canvass Committee, says, "As far as can be ascertained 
the number of canvassers engaged in this important work is 
not less than eight or ten thousand. About one thousand 
copies of the 'Appeal to the Christians of London/ four hun- 
dred thousand copies of the 'Address to Parents/ seven thou- 
sand canvassers' books, and the same number of recommenda- 
tion-books, have been prepared and put in circulation, and nu- 
merous meetings have been held to instruct and interest the 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 95 



of Bibles, tracts, and books, — the establishment of 
local prayer and fellowship meetings and lectures, — 
co-operation with benevolent and charitable institu- 
tions for the relief of want and suffering, — the 
establishment of saving-banks for the poor, or such 
direction and advice concerning them as is necessary 
to make them available, — these, and whatever else 
will tend to elevate, reform, and render temperate, 
thrifty, prudent, and economical, the humbler classes 
of society, are " opportunities of doing good to all," 
which are not to be overlooked when it is in the 
power of their hand to use them : — 

Free-handed bounty ! where her footsteps stray, 
Spring verdant trees around, and flowers that move 
Their thankful heads. Her treasure is above ; 
And therefore doth she shrink from earthly praise, — 
Friend of the poor ! 

THE NUMBER OF CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 

There cannot be less than one million of young 
men among the four million of professors in the 

canvassers in the several districts of the metropolis." Such an 
army of Christian labourers, simultaneously perambulating the 
streets of London, penetrating every court and alley, visiting 
every house, and seeking to bring under religious instruction 
the entire youthful population, is probably an event unprece- 
dented in the history of the Church, and richly deserves the 
hearty sympathy and earnest prayers of every Christian patriot 
and philanthropist. 



93 young men's 



thirty thousand evangelical churches of the United 
States, and not less than four million young men 
among the families connected with and under the 
influence of the sixteen million persons who are 
affiliated with those churches. What a host of work- 
men ! What a field in which to work ! What 
work may not such materials, wrought upon by such 
artificers, under the direction and wisdom and all- 
powerful grace of the Master- Workman — the divine 
Sculptor and the all-powerful Regenerator — accom- 
plish ! What new life may they not infuse into 
these churches ! How may the sound of their voice, 
saying "come/' swell the voice of the preached 
gospel, saying "come/' until throughout all the 
earth there shall be no speech nor language where 
their voice is not heard, — none left to say unto his 
brother, " Know thou the Lord, because all shall 
know him from the least unto the greatest V What 
a noble testimony may not such a host, marshalled 
under the banners of the Crucified, bear to the 
glorious gospel of the blessed God ! What an in- 
vincible protest may they not offer against atheism. 
scepticism, false philosophy, and error of every name 
and school ; against bigotry, sectarianism, and every 
high thing that exalteth itself in opposition to the 
truth and power and love and glory of God, and to 
that peace and good-will which should prevail among 
men ! What a shout may go up from such a multi- 
tude, — loud as the noise of many waters, or of a vie- 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 97 



torious army when with acclamations of triumph it 
drives before it the retreating foe like chaff before the 
whirl wind, or as the sound of blest voices uttering joy 
which ascend to the throne of God and the Lamb from 
that innumerable company, whom no man can num- 
ber, around the throne, — as they "lift up their voice 
with strength, as they lift it up, and are not afraid, 
and say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God." 

THE GLORIOUS CONFEDERATION OF ALL CHRISTIAN 
YOUNG MEN. 

What a magnificent embodiment of Christian love 
would the association of these millions of young men 
present, drawn together and united and held to- 
gether by a Him to whom shall be the gathering 
of the nations."* Having Christ in their heart the 
hope of glory, they find in Christ's church a home 
where " the social instincts of humanity, attracted 
by brotherly love, experience all that gratifies, glad- 
dens, and purifies." And in the divine principle 
of association they have "a bond of perfectness;" a 
law of attraction; an atmosphere of light; an element 
of active, out-going, diffusive, and all-embracing 
charity, by which the divided are made one and the 

* May not the power of these associations be vastly enhanced 
by associating with them Christian young women in affiliated 
union, and by co-operating with and superintending Young 
Women's Christian Associations for doing for young women 
what these do for young men ? 



98 young men's 



sin-separated united by holy principles; an instinct 
stronger than any earth-born affection penetrating 
through all social, civil, political, and ecclesiastical 
distinctions, and drawing together into one heart- 
yearning, heart-satisfying affection the children of 
God, the partakers of one blood, brethren in Christ 
and heirs together through him to the same inherit- 
ance of glory. 

This feeling of brotherhood, binding Christians 
together here as children not only of the same 
Father but also of the same mother, (for Jerusalem, 
or Zion, is the mother of us all,) would be a bond 
elastic enough and strong enough to encircle our land 
and the globe itself, and to unite together in one 
bundle of life — irresistible by its united strength as 
an aggressive weapon and secure against all assaults 
in its self-protecting combination — all who call upon 
the name of the Lord, both theirs and ours. 

And it will yet do so. God will gather his children 
from the east, and gather them from the west. 
He will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, 
Keep not back. Bring my sons from far and my 
daughters from the ends of the earth, even every 
one that is called by my name, for I have created 
him for my glory. One shall say, I am the Lord's; 
and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; 
and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the 
Lord, and shall surname himself by the name of 
Israel. How blissful the contemplation of that 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 99 



general assembly, that covenanted union of the 
children of God ! Born by a new celestial birth, 
Jesus himself presiding over and blessing them ; the 
representatives of all sects and parties shall meet to 
sing the jubilee of universal peace and celebrate the 
funeral of all their differences ! Over that grave 
no tears shall be shed. Beside it no pale mourners 
shall stand. All quarrels and controversies and all 
weapons of war shall then be forever buried, — buried 
without hope or fear of a resurrection, while above, 
shining brightly and gloriously, heaven shall rise as 
the temple dedicated to eternal concord. 

Glorious prophecy ! Hasten it in our time, 
Lord. Why tarry thy chariot-wheels ? Tarry 
not. Defer not. Hearken and bless. Speak thou 
the word, and great shall be the multitude. Be- 
rne mber thy covenant which thou hast made, which 
thou hast spoken, which thou hast renewed and 
sealed by two immutable things, — thy promise and 
thy oath. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. And 
lei it come to pass in these days that thou wilt pour 
out thy Spirit upon all flesh. Then shall our sons 
and our daughters prophesy, and our young men 
see visions, and our old men dream dreams; and then 
shall it come to pass that whosoever shall call upon 
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Even so, 
Lord Jesus ; come quickly. For Zion's sake I will 
not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will 
not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as 



100 YOUNG MEN'S 



brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that 
burnetii. ye watchmen upon the walls of Je- 
rusalem, hold not your peace clay nor night. Make 
mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give 
him no rest till he establish and till he make Jeru- 
salem a praise in the earth. For as a young man 
marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee, 
Zion; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the 
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. 

CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN THE BOND OF NATIONAL 
UNION. 

Before concluding, let me remark that there never 
was a time in this country when it was so important 
that Christians of all denominations should see eye to 
eye and be of one heart and one mind. The union 
of these States is the greatest miracle of God's poli- 
tical wisdom, power, and goodness, ever performed 
since the exodus of Israel and the establishment 
of the divine theocratic republic. Not the ark upon 
the whelming waters of a deluged world, with its 
living freight and its divine principles, was more 
important to the interests of humanity, or more 
significant of divine benignity, than is this ark 
bearing within its consecrated walls the life and 
power of a world whelmed in the flood of civil and 
religious despotism. And yet there are machinations 
of evil working with superhuman energy to under- 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 101 



mine the foundations of that union, and to overturn 
and overturn, until all our hallowed institutions, civil, 
political, and religious, — the praise and envy of the 
whole earth, — are buried in one mass of ruins ! 
And yet against that very ark Satan has let loose 
all the winds of heaven, and upheaved the ocean 
from its inmost depths to bury it in its fathomless 
abyss, and once more defeat, if he may, the merciful 
purposes of God towards man ! 

But the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
Its builder and maker is God. The Lord in the 
midst of it is mighty. It is founded upon the Rock 
of ages. That ark is of divine construction, and 
was launched upon her billowy deep by the divine 
power. And he who guides her course can make 
even the winds to be still and the waves to cease, 
can encircle her with the bow of promise, make her 
framework durable as the everlasting mountains, and 
again send forth from her, to a world groaning un- 
der the corruption and abuses of superstition and 
despotic tyranny, the dove of loving peace, the olive- 
branch of hope, the pledges of liberty and of a 
, renovated earth. 

Thou too sail on, ship of State, 
Sail on, Union strong and great ! 
Humanity — with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years — 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We knoio what master laid thy heel ; 
"What workman wrought thy ribs of steel ; 
9* 



102 YOUNG MEN'S 



"Who made each mast and sail and rope; 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 

In what a forge and what a heat 

"Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock : 

' Tis of the wave, and not the rock ; 

'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock and tempest-roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore. 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith, triumphant o'er -our fears, 

Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! 

For the realization, however, of this glorious pro- 
phecy, to what other agency can we look with greater 
confidence than to the union of our Christian young 
men throughout the land? These can "keep the 
unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace." By 
these disunion can be averted and the union pre- 
served. These can do more by their Christian fel- 
lowship and prayers and influence, than all the poli- 
ticians in the land can do either for good or ill. 
" They have power with God to prevail." 

And as at their recent conference these associations 
were invoked to employ this influence for the de- 
liverance of our country and Britain our fatherland 
from war, so would I now invoke it for averting the 
still more dreadful calamity of civil war and political 
disunion. 

I allude to this subject not as a politician, — for 1 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 103 



have never been identified with any one political 
party, — but as a Christian citizen who has been led 
to cherish these sentiments towards the land of his 
early adoption and matured affection, — and I do it 
because the most frightful peculiarity in the present 
conflict of opinion is the abandonment of the Bible 
as a standard of duty and of morals even by many 
professing Christians, their association with those 
who reject its authority altogether, and the conse- 
quent promulgation of principles which, once esta- 
blished, could lead only to agrarianism, anarchy, and 
bloodshed. 

To you, my young friends, I would therefore ad- 
dress the truly eloquent, Christian, and patriotic 
words of the venerable Dr. Nott, — the American 
Nestor, — and thus blend the voice of the North 
with that of the South, in an appeal to your heart 
of hearts on behalf of our bleeding, lacerated 
country.* 

' You enter/ says that venerable and patriotic 
Christian, c upon life at a critical conjuncture. Your 
country stands in need of all the talents and all 
the influence you can carry with you to her as- 
. sisiance. May I not hope that, as you are numbered 
among her patriots and statesmen, your prudence 
will be as exemplary as your zeal? Though you 

* Given in a Baccalaureate address to the students of Union 
College. 



104 YOUNG MEN'S 



should differ in political opinions, be one in affection, 
one in the pursuit of glory, and one in the love of 
your country. Do nothing, say nothing, to produce 
unnecessary rigour on the one part or lawless resist- 
ance on the other. Beware how you contribute to 
awaken the whirlwind of passion, or to invite to this 
sacred land the reign of anarchy. 

' Whatever irritations may be felt, whatever 
questions may be agitated, and however you your- 
selves may be divided, be it your part to calm, to 
soothe, to allay, to check the deed of violence, to 
charm down the spirit of party, to strengthen the 
bonds of social intercourse, and to prove by your 
own amiable deportment, by your own affectionate 
intercourse, that it is possible for brethren to differ 
and be brethren still. Differ indeed you may, 
and avow that difference. Freedom of speech is 
your birthright. The deed which conveys it was 
written in the blood of your fathers ; it was sealed 
beside their sepulchres : and let no man take it from 
you. But remember that the deed which conveys 
defines also, and limits, this freedom. And re- 
member, too, that the line which divides between 
liberty and licentiousness is but a line y and that it 
is easily transgressed. The assassin's dagger is not 
more fatal to the peace of the community than the 
liar's tongue and the malisner's fans;. Nor does the 
sacred charter of the freeman's privileges furnish to 
the one, any more than to the other, an asylum. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 105 



1 It is your happiness to live under a government 
of laws. Nor, were it demonstrated that these were 
impolitic, or even oppressive, would it justify re- 
sistance. There is a redeeming principle in the 
Constitution itself. That instrument provides a 
legitimate remedy for grievances, and, unless on 
great emergencies, the only rightful one. Under 
a compact like ours, the majority must govern : the 
minority must submit, and they ought to submit. 
Not by constraint merely, but for conscience' sake. 
The powers that he are ordained of God; and, while 
they execute the purpose for which they were or- 
dained, to resist them is to resist the ordinance of 
God, 

c You remember that Jesus Christ paid tribute 
even unto Caesar, than whom there has not lived a 
more execrable tyrant. You remember, too, that 
his immediate followers, as became the disciples of 
such a master, everywhere bowed to the supremacy 
of the Eoman laws. It is a fact that will ever re- 
dound to the honour of the Christian church and 
of its divine Founder, that its members, though 
everywhere oppressed and persecuted for three suc- 
cessive centuries, were nowhere implicated in those 
commotions which agitated the provinces, nor were 
they ever accessory to those treasons which, during 
that period, so often stained the capital with blood. 

6 In the worst of times, therefore, and however you 
may differ with respect to men and measures, still cling 



106 YOUNG MEN'S 



to the Constitution; cling to the integrity of 
the Union ; cling to the institutions of your coun- 
try. These, under God, are your political ark of 
safety; the ark that contains the cradle of liberty 
in which you were rocked, that preserves the vase 
of Christianity in which you were baptized, and 
that defends the sacred urn where the ashes of your 
patriot fathers moulder. Cling, therefore, to this 
ark, and defend it while a drop of blood is propelled 
from your heart or a shred of muscle quivers on 
your bones. Triumph as the friends of liberty, of 
order, of religion, or fall as martyrs.' 

A thrill of anxious foreboding runs through 
every bosom in this broad land. The national life 
is awake. It throbs with powerful emotion. It is 
alarmed for its own safety. False and treacherous 
physicians wait around, but only that by their bane- 
ful drugs they may hasten a catastrophe; while 
hungry heirs, from whom our country has long with- 
held the full measure both of the pre-eminence and 
profit they desire, are ready to rejoice over her as 
fallen, — sunk behind the dark clouds of desolation 
while her sun was yet shining more and more towards 
her promised day of glorious, unrivalled splendour. 

Haste, then, to her relief. The United States of 
America expects that every man will do his duty. 
Only secure to her free air, prevent these poisonous 
dosings, and let her alone, and, with God's blessing 
sought and obtained by prayer, there is vitality 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 107* 



enough to outgrow all her distempers and to live to 
an enduring age amid the joyful acclamations of her 
own numerous posterity. May she thus live the 

MOTHER OF US ALL ! 

May she thus abide with us, u not merely as a 
vast instrumentality for the protection of our com- 
merce and navigation, and for achieving power 
and eminence among the sovereigns of the earth, 
but as a means of improving the material lot, of 
elevating the moral and mental nature, and of in- 
suring the personal happiness, of the millions of 
many distant generations/ ' 

Or, to change our figure : the ship of the state 
is in the midst of breakers on a dangerous coast. 
She has deranged her compass, and has unshipped 
her rudder. She has no certain reckoning to guide 
her, for the sun has not been visible at its zenith 
for many days, and her brave and noble pilots one 
after another have been washed overboard at their 
dangerous post. What are we to do? Lower the 
boat, and let every man that can escape with his 
plunder do so ? Not at all. We are as Paul was. 
We must do as Paul did. Every man must remain at 
his post of duty. Not a soul must give up the ship 
or give up hope. Only abide with her. Only rec- 
tify the compass and replace the rudder. Only cast 
overboard every weight, every false reliance, every 
carnal policy, every self-seeking, selfish, and merely- 
Bectional cargo ; and only let those who represent Paul 



.108 YOUNG MEN'S 



plead, as Paul did, with Paul's divine Master, and 
not a soul on board shall perish. He, the Lord of 
all, omnipotent to save, will come to our relief. He 
will command the winds and the waves, and thej 
must obey him. They shall be at peace. The storm- 
clouds shall roll away before the favouring breeze. 
The sun shall again shine forth and the stars appear 
in their brightness. "We shall all come safe to land. 
Not one shall perish ; and there, safely moored, all 
perils over, we shall all together swell one prayer of 
praise and one song of thanksgiving to Him that 
hath done such great things for us. United in 
Christ, the Union is safe. * 



* " When my eyes," said Webster, " shall be turned to behold 
for the last time the sun in the heavens, may I not see him 
shining on the broken and dishonoured fragments of a once 
glorious Union, — on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent, 
— on a land rent with feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal 
blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold 
the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honoured 
throughout the earth, still full-high advanced, its arms and 
trophies streaming in their original lustre, — not a stripe erased 
or polluted, not a single star obscured, — bearing for its motto 
no such miserable interrogatory as, 'What is all this 'worth V 
— nor those other words of disunion and folly, 'Liberty first, 
and Union afterward f but everywhere — spread all over in 
characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they 
float over the sea and over the land and in every wind under 
the whole heavens — that other sentiment, dear to every true 
American heart : — ' Liberty and Union, now and forever, one 
and inseparable. '" 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 109 



While the language free and bold 

Which the bard of Avon sung, — 
In which our Milton told 

How the vaults of heaven rung, 
When Satan, blasted, fell with all his host. 

While these, with reverence meet, 

Ten thousand echoes greet, 

And from rock to rock repeat 
Round our coast ! ! 
While the manners, while the arts, 

That mould a nation's soul, 
Still cling around our hearts, 

Between let rivers roll, 
Our joint communion breaking with the sun; 

Yet still from either side 

The bands of love stretched wide, 

With voice of blood shall reach, 

More audible than speech, 
And loud proclaim to all that we are one. 

"I have been abroad," says President Buchanan, "in other 
lands; I have witnessed arbitrary power; I have contemplated 
the people of other countries: but there is no country under 
God's heavens where a man feels for his fellow-man, except in 
the United States. And if you could feel how despotism looks 
on, how jealous despotic powers of the world are of our glorious 
institutions, you would cherish the Constitution and Union in 
your hearts, — next to your belief in the Christian religion: — the 
Bible for heaven, and the Constitution of your country for earth." 

That is a beautiful figure of Winthrop's, in reference to our 
Constitution, where he says, "Like one of those wondrous 
rocking-stones raised by the Druids, which the finger of a child 
might vibrate to the centre yet the might of an army could 
not move from its place, our Constitution is so nicely poised 
that it seems to sway with the very breath of passion, yet so 
firmly based in the hearts and affections of the people, that the 
10 



110 YOUNG MEN'S 



THE COMMUNION OF CITIZENSHIP AND THE COM- 
MUNION OF SAINTS. 

Let us then, — for I am one of your fraternity, — 
let us cherish, the communion of citizenship, and, 
above all, the communion of saints, the brotherhood 
of Christianity. The motto of our national union is 
the motto also of our Christian union : — e pluribus 
UNUM, — one from many, — many united into one, — 
every one having his own peculiar and independent 
institutions, rights, interests, and policy, all having a 

wildest storms of treason and fanaticism break over it in vain. " 
We trust that this may be verified. 

"our native land. 

11 Home of our birth ! our dear-loved land, 

Thy glories stretch from sea to sea: 

From ocean -lake to tropic strand; 

Land of the fearless and the free ! 

" From where the we.-tern Golden Gate 
Gleams ruddy in the sunset ray, 
To where the stem Atlantic chain 
Looks proudly on the rising day, — 

"From far Niagara's deluge wild 
To Florida's perennial flowers : 
Ne'er hath the sun of heaven smiled 
On such a heritage as ours. 

"' God and the Union !' This our creed, — 
Our motto this forever be : 
So shall our starry banner float 
Forever o'er the brave and free !" 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. Ill 



common constitution, common dangers, and common 
glory or shame, prosperity or progress. And thus 
also, while there is one Lord and one Spirit, there 
are various gifts and diversities of administration in 
every church and in every individual Christian. 
The working of the Spirit in the one universal 
church, made up of all its separate members, is like 
"the breathings of the wind upon the ocean, no two 
waves shaping themselves to exact uniformity, and 
yet all curving and rippling into expressions of one 
great law, all answering to each other in perfect 
harmony as developments of one great principle. 
Every Christian has his own differentia, his own 
peculiar catalogue of hopes and aspirations and im- 
pulses 3 and yet he has also so much in common with 
all his brethren in Christ as to be able to make 
their language his own." Hence arise, like a forest 
of beautiful peaks soaring heavenward from a single 
mountain, the innumerable blessings not only of the 
communion of saints, but, above all, of holy fellow- 
ship, holy co-operation and striving together for 
the furtherance of the gospel. 

Let us then, as fellow- workmen and fellow-pil- 
grims, walk hand in hand, bearing one another's bur- 
dens, helping each other's infirmities, forbearing one 
another in love, seeking the things that make for 
peace, each minding his own business and fulfilling 
his own task, and all looking for and hasting unto the 
coming of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. 



112 YOUNG MEN'S 



Come, brothers ! let us onward ; 

Night comes without delay, 
And in this howling desert 

It is not good to stay. 
Take courage and be strong; 

We are hasting on to heaven ; 

Strength for warfare will be given, 
And glory won ere long. 

The pilgrims' path of trial 

We do not fear to view; 
"We know his voice who calls us, — 

We know him to be true. 
Then let who will contemn, 

Come strong in his Almighty grace, 

Come, every one with steadfast face! 
On to Jerusalem ! 

brothers, soon is ended 

The journey we've begun ; 
Endure a little longer, — 

The race will soon be run. 
And in the land of rest — 

In yonder bright eternal home 

Where all the Father's loved ones come- 
We shall be safe and blest. 

Then, boldly let us venture ! 

This, this is worth the cost : 
Though dangers we encounter, 

Though every thing is lost, 
world ! how vain thy call ! 

We follow him who went before, 

We follow, to th' eternal shore, 
Jesus, our all-in-all. 



CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 113 



THE APPEAL. 

God, my brothers, will not leave us; 

Still his heaven is o'er us bent ; 
His commandments are not grievous : 

Do his will, and be content. 
Only truth and love shall flourish 

In the end, beloved mates ; 
Only charity can nourish 

Those whom charity creates. 
Believe in God. 



You have wrongs by forge and furnace, 

You have darkness, you have dread; 
But you work in radiant harness, 

And your God is overhead. 
Does not night bring forth the morning? 

Does not darkness father light ? 
Even now we have forewarning, 

Brothers, of the close of night. 
Believe in God. 



Many, many are the shadows 

That the dawn of truth reveals 
Beautiful on life's broad meadows 

Is the light the Christian feels. 
Evil shall give place to goodness, 

Wrong be dispossess'cl by right; 
Out of old chaotic rudeness 

God evokes a world of li^ht. 
Believe in God. 
10* 



114 CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. 



Do ye toil ? Oh, freer, firmer 

Ye shall grow beneath your toil ; 
Only craven spirits murmur, 

Lightly rooted in the soil. 
Through the gloom, and through the darkness, 

Through the danger and the dole, 
Through the mist and through the lnurkness, 

Travels the great human soul. 
Believe in God. 

I through doubt and darkness travel 

Through the agony and gloom, 
Hoping that I shall unravel 

This strange web beyond the tomb. 
my brothers ! men heroic! 

Workers both with hand and brain! 
'Tis the Christian — not the Stoic — 

That best triumphs over pain. 
Believe in I 

my brothers ! love anil labour! 

Conquer wrong by doing right; 
Truth alone must be your sabre, 

Love alone your shield in fight. 
Virtue yet shall cancel vices; 

Look above, beloved mates ! 
Only God himself suffices 

Those whom God alone creates. 
Believe in God. 



APPENDIX. 



L 

SKETCHES OF YOUNG MEN. 

Alexander of Macedon extended his power over 
Greece, conquered Egypt, rebuilt Alexandria, overran 
all Asia, and died at thirty-eight years of age. 

Hannibal was but twenty-five when, after the fall of 
his father Haroilcar, and Asdrubal his successor, he 
was chosen commander-in-chief of the Carthaginian 
army. At twenty-seven, he captured Saguntum from 
the Romans. Before he was thirty-four, he carried 
his arms from Africa into Italy, conquered Publius 
Scipio on the banks of the Ticinus, routed Sempronius 
near the Trebia, defeated Flaminius on his approach 
to the Apennines, laid waste the whole country, de- 
feated Fabius Maximus and Yarro, marched into 
Capua, and at the age of thirty-five was thundering 
at the gates of Rome. 

Scipio Africanus was scarcely sixteen when he took 
an active part in the battle of Cannae and saved the 
life of his father. The wreck of the Roman cavalry 
chose him then for their leader, and he conducted them 
back to the capital. After he was twenty, he was ap- 
pointed proconsul of Spain, where he took New Car- 

115 



113 APPENDIX. 



thage by storm. Soon after he defeated successively 
Asdrubal, (Hannibal's brother,) Mago, and Hann, 
crossed over into Africa, negotiating with Syphax, the 
Massasylian king, returned to Spain, quelled the in- 
surrection there, drove the Carthaginians wholly from 
the peninsula, returned to Rome, devised the diversion 
against the Carthaginians by carrying the war into 
Africa, crossed thither, destroyed the army of Syphax, 
compelled the return of Hannibal, and defeated Asdru- 
bal a second time. 

Charlemagne was crowned King of the Franks before 
he was twenty-six. At the age of twenty-eight, he had 
conquered Aquitania ; at the age of thirty, he made 
himself master of the whole German and French 
Empires. 

Charles XII., of Sweden, was declared of age by the 
States, and succeeded his father, at the age of fifteen. 
At eighteen, he headed the expedition against the 
Danes, whom he checked ; and, with a fourth of their 
numbers, he cut to pieces the Russian army, com- 
manded by the Czar Peter, at Narva, crossed the 
Dwina, gained a victory over the Saxons, and carried 
his arms into Poland. At twenty-one, he had con- 
quered Poland and dictated to them a new sovereign. 
At twenty- four he had subdued Saxony, and at twenty- 
seven he was conducting his victorious troops into the 
heart of Russia, when a severe wound prevented his 
taking command in person, and resulted in his over- 
throw and subsequent treacherous captivity in Turkey. 

Lafayette was major-general in the American army 
at the age of eighteen ; was but twenty when he was 
wounded at the battle of Brandy wine ; but twenty-two 



SKETCHES OF YOUNG MEN. 117 



Y^hen be raised supplies for his army, on his own 
credit, at Baltimore ; and but twenty-three when raised 
to the office of commander-in-chief of the National 
Guards of France. 

Napoleon Bonaparte commenced his military career 
as an officer of artillery at the siege of Toulon. His * 
splendid campaign in Italy was performed at the age 
of twenty-seven. During the next year, when he was 
about twenty-eight, he gained battle after battle over 
the Austrians in Italy, conquered Mantua, carried the 
war into Austria, ravaged the Tyrol, concluded an 
advantageous peace, took possession of Milan and the 
Venetian Republic, revolutionised Genoa, and formed 
the Cisalpine Republic. At the age of twenty-nine, he 
received the command of the army against Egypt, 
scattered the clouds of Mameluke cavalry, mastered 
Alexandria, Aboukir, and Cairo, and wrested the land 
of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies from the proud de- 
scendants of -the prophet. At the age of thirty he fell 
among the Parisians like a thunderbolt, overthrew the 
directorial government, dispersed the Council of Five 
Hundred, and was proclaimed first consul. At the 
age of thirty-one he crossed the Alps with an army, 
and destroyed the Austrians by a blow at Marengo, 
At the age of thirty-two he established the Code of 
Napoleon ; in the same year he was elected consul for 
life by the people, and at the age of thirty-three he 
was declared Emperor of the French nation. 

William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, was but 
twenty-seven years of age when, as a member of Par- 
liament, he waged the war of a giant against the cor- 
ruptions of Sir Robert Walpole. 



118 APPENDIX. 



The younger Pitt was scarcely twenty years of age 
when, with masterly power, he grappled with the 
veterans in Parliament in favour of America. At 
twenty-two he was called to the high and responsible 
trust of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was his 
age when he came forth in his might on the affairs of 
the East Indies. At twenty-nine, during the first in- 
sanity of George III., he rallied around the Prince of 
Wales. 

Edmund Burke, at the age of nineteen, planned a 
refutation of the metaphysical theories of Berkeley and 
Hume. At twenty he was in the Temple, the admira- 
tion of its inmates for the brilliancy of his genius and 
the variety of his acquisitions. At twenty-sis he pub- 
lished his celebrated satire entitled "A Vindication of 
Natural Society." The same year he published his 
1 'Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," — so much ad- 
mired for its spirit of philosophical investigation and 
the elegance of its language. At twenty-five he was 
First Lord of the Treasury. 

George Washington was only twenty-seven years of 
age when he covered the retreat of the British troops 
at Braddock's defeat, and the same year was appointed 
commander-in-chief of all the Virginia forces. 

General Joseph Warren was only twenty-nine years 
of age when, in defiance of the British soldiers stationed 
at the door of the church, he pronounced the celebrated 
oration which aroused the spirit of liberty and patriot- 
ism that terminated in the achievement of independ- 
ence. At thirty-four he gloriously fell, gallantly 
fighting for the cause of freedom, on Bunker Hill. 

Alexander Hamilton was a lieutenant-colonel in the 



SKETCHES OF YOUNG MEN. 119 



army of the American Revolution and aide-de-camp to 
Washington at the age of twenty. At the age of 
twenty-five he was a member of Congress from New 
York ; at thirty he was one of the ablest members of 
the Convention that formed the Constitution of the 
United States. At thirty-one he was a member of the 
New York Convention, and joint author of the great 
work entitled the " Federalist/' At thirty- two he was 
Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and 
arranged the financial branch of the government upon 
so perfect a plan that no great improvement has ever 
been made upon it by his successors. 

Thomas Haywood, of North Carolina, was but thirty 
years of age when he signed the glorious record of a 
nation's birth, — the Declaration of Independence. El- 
bridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, Benjamin Rush and 
James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, were but thirty-one 
years of age; Matthew Thornton, of New Hampshire, 
thirty-one; Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, Arthur 
Middleton, of South Carolina, and Thomas Stone, of 
Maryland, thirty-three ; and William Hooper, of North 
Carolina, thirty-four. 

John Jay, at twenty-nine years of age, was a member 
of the Revolutionary Congress, and, being associated 
with Lee and Livingston on the committee for draft- 
ing an address to the people of Great Britain, drew up 
that paper himself, which was considered one of the 
most eloquent productions of the time. At thirty-two 
he penned the Constitution of New York, and in the 
same year was appointed ehief-justice of the State. 
At thirty-four he was appointed minister to Spain. 

At the age of twenty-six, Thomas Jefferson was a 



120 APPENDIX. 



leading member of the Colonial Legislature of Vir- 
ginia. At thirty he was a member of the Virginia 
Convention; at thirty-two a member of Congress; at 
thirty-three he drafted the Declaration of Independence, 

Milton, at the age of twenty-three, had written his 
finest miscellaneous poems, including his "1/ Allegro, " 
" Penseroso," "Comus," and the most beautiful of hi? 
monodies. 

Lord Byron, at the age of twenty, published his 
celebrated satire upon the ''English Bards and Scotch 
Reviewers;" at twenty-three, the first two cantos of 
" Childe Harold's Pilgrimage/' Indeed, all the poetic 
treasures of his genius were poured forth in their 
richest profusion before he was thirty-four years old ; 
and he died at thirty-seven. 

Mozart, the great German musician, completed all 
his noblest compositions before he was thirty-four 
years old ; and he died at thirty-six. 

Pope wrote his published poems by the time he was 
nineteen years old ; at twenty his " Essay on Criticism ;" 
at twenty -one the "Rape of the Lock ;" and at twenty- 
five his great work, — the translation of the Iliad. 

Dr. Dwight's "Conquest of Canaan" was commenced 
at the age of sixteen and finished at twenty-two. At the 
latter age he composed his celebrated Dissertation on 
the history, eloquence, and poetry of the Bible, which 
was immediately published, and republished in Europe. 

This list might be indefinitely multiplied by a re- 
ference to poets, reformers, divines, and missionaries, 
most of whom began early to develop and work out 
their mission for humanity, and, having done so, 
passed to their rest and recompense. 



THE PLACE FOR YOUNG MEN. 121 



II. 



We append the following article, which has just: ap- 
peared in the Kichmond Central Presbyterian, both as 
a very just delineation of these Associations and as 
presenting in the one at Richmond a good model to 
others. 

THE PLACE FOR YOUNG MEN. 

One of the noblest Institutions in this city is the 
Young Men's Christian Association. The pious in- 
genuity of the good has never devised an organization 
better fitted to accomplish two great and important 
ends, viz.: the social, intellectual, and moral improve- 
ment of its own members, and the temporal and 
spiritual welfare of those not connected with it, yet 
in whose behalf this organization exerts its influence. 

There is such variety in its plans and in its means 
of usefulness that it is practically the ally of nearly 
every good enterprise known to society and to the 
church. 

There is so much symmetry in its constitution, and" 
such is the practical working of its different depart- 
ments of labour, that it is capable of becoming the 
auxiliary to more objects of philanthropy and religion 
than any other society of which we have any know- 
ledge. It has its committees for seeking out and re- 
lieving the destitute, for visiting the inmates of poor- 
houses and hospitals, for making the acquaintance of 
young men on their first arrival in the city, for the 
11 



122 APPENDIX. 



purpose of aiding them in finding employment and for 
the purpose of surrounding them with moral and reli- 
gious influences ; it furnishes teachers to Sabbath- 
schools, it conducts strangers to the house of God : in a 
word, responsive to every call of benevolence and Chris- 
tian zeal, this Society comes forward in all the alacrity 
and ardour of its youthful vigour, with the offer of its 
warm heart and strong arm, feeling honoured in having 
its services accepted, and delighting to render its effi- 
cient aid. Such are its relations to society at large ; 
such its external work. 

As to its inner life, we feel assured that, had the 
Young Men's Christian Association no other object 
than the improvement of its own members, this alone 
would render it worthy of the sympathy and support 
of every youth of generous feelings and honourable 
principles ; for such is the nature of its organization 
that it calls into play and develops the finest social 
qualities of our nature ; it throws young men to- 
gether in such a way as to excite the kindest interest 
in each other, to soften and break down prejudices, 
and to awaken sentiments of mutual esteem and 
friendship. 

Unlike other associations among young men which 
sometimes lead to rivalries and discord, — to the en- 
couragement of coarse and vulgar manners, to the in- 
dulgence of a taste for low and degrading pleasures, 
and to the formation perhaps of dissipated habits, — 
the intercourse which results from this association is 
all elevating, pure, and refining. It tends to repress 
whatever is rude, selfish, and sensual, and to give de- 
velopment to all that is disinterested, generous, and 



THE PLACE FOR YOUNG MEN. 123 



manly ; for around all of its meetings, even those 
which are merely literary and most unreservedly social, 
there is thrown the gentle and sweetly-constraining 
influence of our common Christianity ; and in all the 
genial flow of youthful spirits, in all the collision of 
mind with mind, while there is every thing in the 
ardour and spirit and glow of the intercourse to make 
it plain that it is a young men's association, still, it is 
never forgotten that it is a young men's Christian 
association. 

For the entertainment and profit of its members it 
has established a library and reading-room ; it has its 
meetings for friendly intercourse, its rhetorical society 
for literary exercises and forensic discussions, its 
meetings for business and its meetings for prayer ; 
and, in addition to these means of mental and spiritual 
improvement, it has formed another circle for the 
study of the Holy Scriptures. On every Thursday 
night the Hall of the Association is thrown open to all 
who are willing to attend informal lectures and exa- 
minations on portions of Scripture selected for the 
occasion. This class is under the direction of one of 
the pastors of the city; and any young man who de- 
sires to become a member of it is at liberty to do so, 
whether he is a member of any church or not, and 
whether he is a member of the Association or not. 



THE END. 



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